This tournament was really boring. I got AA once and KK twice and stole the blinds all three times. Other than that it was a garbage fest.
Two hands come to mind that did me in. On the first I called a small raise with T9s. Another player called behind me and the flop came down J 9 7 giving me a pair and a gutshot straight draw. The initial raiser checked and I bet 900 into a pot of about 1,000. The player behind me called and the initial raiser folded. The turn was a king giving me a few more outs if I was beat.
I thought about checking but decided to fire again betting 2,000. My opponent raised me to 5,000. Now there was 10,000 in the pot and it would cost me another 3,000 to see if I could make my straight. This is a close situation. If the only thing that's going to give me the pot is a straight and I'm not going to get anything out of my opponent with a bet on the end if I hit, then I should fold. If a 9 or a ten makes me the best hand as well as a straight then it's a clear call. I was thinking that a straight or a 9, but not a ten would make me a winner, and that my opponent would call a small bet on the river if I hit.
The river was a 7 and I checked. My opponent also checked and showed me T8 meaning he flopped a straight!
That hand took me from 14,000+ to 8,000. I've forgotten how I dropped to 4,500, but that's where I was when the hand that did me in came up.
The blinds were 75/150 with an ante and a player in middle position raised to 400. I was in the big blind with 89 and decided to take a flop. When the cards came out I was looking at Q T 8. I didn't exactly knock it out of the park, but that wasn't a total miss either. I checked and my opponent bet out 625 into the pot of about 1,000.
Folding or calling were options I considered here, but in the end I figured it was time to go for it. There was a fair chance I had the best hand (or that my opponent would fold, since I didn't think he'd call me with a worse hand), and if I didn't, an 8, 9 or J should make me a winner. I moved all in and my opponent called me with KQ. I was 32% to win after the flop, but I didn't get there and that was it.
I won $800 in the cash games while I was playing though so I'm not feeling too bad. It's making me wonder why the hell I'm playing these damn tournaments!
Sunday, September 06, 2009
WCOOP Event #11 Underway!
Event #11 is $530 NL hold'em. 6,219 of us started with 10,000 chips each, blinds of 25/50 and 30 minute levels.
This tournament is going to take a long time! 5 hours in the blinds will only be 200/400! 2 hours in I'm up to 14,400.
There is some serious money at the end of this rainbow. 1st place is $472,000! Any finish in the top 6 is worth over $100,000! 54th or better will net me $5,000 and the edge of the money is 900th place which pays $808.
This tournament is going to take a long time! 5 hours in the blinds will only be 200/400! 2 hours in I'm up to 14,400.
There is some serious money at the end of this rainbow. 1st place is $472,000! Any finish in the top 6 is worth over $100,000! 54th or better will net me $5,000 and the edge of the money is 900th place which pays $808.
The Damage So Far
With 20% of the WCOOP in the rearview mirror my $20,000 bankroll sits at $18,420. Most of these tournament have been sort of warm up and as a result the damage hasn't been to severe. I'm 1 for 6 in WCOOP events and 0 for 7 in satellites (haven't played a second chance tournament yet) which sucks, but it's still early.
WCOOP Multitournament Recap
I'll get to my satellite debachle in a minute. But first other news.
I finished 368th of 844 in the PL 5-card draw. I got my starting stack of 5,000 up to 14,000 and felt pretty good about how I played, but after hours of playing pretty well I think I got a little too aggressive late. I opened for a pot sized raise with AAKK2 got reraised and moved all in. My opponent had a pat straight, I didn't make a full house on the draw and that was it.
In the $215 limit I finished 818th of 1,800. Can't say what went wrong here. I got off to a slow start and was short stacked for a long time, but I ran my 5,000 chip starting stack up to 10,000 at one point before making a quick drop to zero chips.
In today's $215 NLH tournament (event #9) I lasted all of 20 minutes. I signed up late so as to avoid the mind numbing first few levels where the stakes are super low. Again we started with 5,000 chips. With blinds of 25/50 I lost 500 chips when I raised with AQ, got called, missed, bet the flop, got called and check folded the turn.
Shortly after a player with about 1,500 chips made it 150 from the cutoff. I reraised to 450 with AK, he moved all in with AQ, and I called. The turn and river were both queens.
A little while later a player open raised to 150, the next player made it 500, and I moved all in for about 3,000 with TT. This play wasn't crazy, but I probably should have folded. The guy who made it 500 had AA and knocked me out.
Now that that's out of the way let's talk about that satellite yesterday. Top 4 players got $10,300, 5th place got $375, and I finished 6th and got $0.
With 8 players left and blind of 250/500 with some small ante I had 16,000 and was in 2nd place, but the small stack was 8,000 or so and the big stack was less than 20,000. We were all pretty even.
Then I busted the small stack. He (insanely) moved all in from the button for 8,000 with 69 and I called from the big blind with AJs. He flopped a 9, but I turned an ace. That put me in first with 7 players left as the blinds went up to 300/600.
In a normal tournament where each place pays a different amount, it almost always the right thing to do to be active and aggressive and use your big stack to push your opponents around. But in a satellite situation where the top 4 all pay the same amount you have to ask yourself "do I have enough chips that I can just cruise the rest of the way?" Sometimes it feels like you have enough chips that your victory is all but sure and then later you find that you've been ground down to the point that you're back in jeopardy. When that happens you end up thinking "why didn't I make a few small moves when I had some chips?!"
What made this situation difficult was everyone had a solid stack. Nobody was under pressure. Even the shortest stack had 20 big blinds and the structure of the tournament was very slow. I didn't need to do anything crazy, but sitting back completely wasn't an option.
We played that way for a good 45 minutes (the blinds moved up to 350/700 at some point) and I managed to keep my stack close to 25,000 for the whole time. Twice I folded hands I would have called with in a normal tournament. Both times, I raised to 2,100 and someone reraised all in to about 12,000. The first time I folded AJs and the second time I folded 77. I didn't want to be taking significant risks unless I had to.
Then the point came where I had to. A player on the button who was the most active at the table made it something like 2,000 to go. He had maybe 15,000 chips total. I had AQ in the big blind and I can say for sure that the only move here is to go all in. So that's what I did. He thought for a little while and called me with 88. And he flopped an 8.
Now I had less than 10,000 and was the short stack. A few rounds went by and then I got dealt A8 suited in the big blind. The small blind moved all in and I thought this was a good spot to get my money in. After all if he had a really good hand you'd never expect him to just move all in like that. But it turns out he had AK!
The first card I saw on the flop was an 8 which gave me a few milliseconds of joy that lasted until I saw that there was also a king on the flop. And that was it.
I look back on everything I did and it all makes sense. But I'm certainly left playing the what if game. What if I call with those pocket sevens or AJ? What if I folded that A8? What if I'd been more aggressive earlier? What if I'd done anything other than what I did, because the end result was THE ABSOLUTE WORST thing that could have happened.
This was a very, very, very tough loss to take. One of the worst I can remember. It takes a lot for me to still be pissed the next day, and while I certainly feel better than I did yesterday, and I know I won't even care in a week or two, I'm still pissed.
Later today, event #11, $530 no limit with $3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool. This one is a 2 day event.
I finished 368th of 844 in the PL 5-card draw. I got my starting stack of 5,000 up to 14,000 and felt pretty good about how I played, but after hours of playing pretty well I think I got a little too aggressive late. I opened for a pot sized raise with AAKK2 got reraised and moved all in. My opponent had a pat straight, I didn't make a full house on the draw and that was it.
In the $215 limit I finished 818th of 1,800. Can't say what went wrong here. I got off to a slow start and was short stacked for a long time, but I ran my 5,000 chip starting stack up to 10,000 at one point before making a quick drop to zero chips.
In today's $215 NLH tournament (event #9) I lasted all of 20 minutes. I signed up late so as to avoid the mind numbing first few levels where the stakes are super low. Again we started with 5,000 chips. With blinds of 25/50 I lost 500 chips when I raised with AQ, got called, missed, bet the flop, got called and check folded the turn.
Shortly after a player with about 1,500 chips made it 150 from the cutoff. I reraised to 450 with AK, he moved all in with AQ, and I called. The turn and river were both queens.
A little while later a player open raised to 150, the next player made it 500, and I moved all in for about 3,000 with TT. This play wasn't crazy, but I probably should have folded. The guy who made it 500 had AA and knocked me out.
Now that that's out of the way let's talk about that satellite yesterday. Top 4 players got $10,300, 5th place got $375, and I finished 6th and got $0.
With 8 players left and blind of 250/500 with some small ante I had 16,000 and was in 2nd place, but the small stack was 8,000 or so and the big stack was less than 20,000. We were all pretty even.
Then I busted the small stack. He (insanely) moved all in from the button for 8,000 with 69 and I called from the big blind with AJs. He flopped a 9, but I turned an ace. That put me in first with 7 players left as the blinds went up to 300/600.
In a normal tournament where each place pays a different amount, it almost always the right thing to do to be active and aggressive and use your big stack to push your opponents around. But in a satellite situation where the top 4 all pay the same amount you have to ask yourself "do I have enough chips that I can just cruise the rest of the way?" Sometimes it feels like you have enough chips that your victory is all but sure and then later you find that you've been ground down to the point that you're back in jeopardy. When that happens you end up thinking "why didn't I make a few small moves when I had some chips?!"
What made this situation difficult was everyone had a solid stack. Nobody was under pressure. Even the shortest stack had 20 big blinds and the structure of the tournament was very slow. I didn't need to do anything crazy, but sitting back completely wasn't an option.
We played that way for a good 45 minutes (the blinds moved up to 350/700 at some point) and I managed to keep my stack close to 25,000 for the whole time. Twice I folded hands I would have called with in a normal tournament. Both times, I raised to 2,100 and someone reraised all in to about 12,000. The first time I folded AJs and the second time I folded 77. I didn't want to be taking significant risks unless I had to.
Then the point came where I had to. A player on the button who was the most active at the table made it something like 2,000 to go. He had maybe 15,000 chips total. I had AQ in the big blind and I can say for sure that the only move here is to go all in. So that's what I did. He thought for a little while and called me with 88. And he flopped an 8.
Now I had less than 10,000 and was the short stack. A few rounds went by and then I got dealt A8 suited in the big blind. The small blind moved all in and I thought this was a good spot to get my money in. After all if he had a really good hand you'd never expect him to just move all in like that. But it turns out he had AK!
The first card I saw on the flop was an 8 which gave me a few milliseconds of joy that lasted until I saw that there was also a king on the flop. And that was it.
I look back on everything I did and it all makes sense. But I'm certainly left playing the what if game. What if I call with those pocket sevens or AJ? What if I folded that A8? What if I'd been more aggressive earlier? What if I'd done anything other than what I did, because the end result was THE ABSOLUTE WORST thing that could have happened.
This was a very, very, very tough loss to take. One of the worst I can remember. It takes a lot for me to still be pissed the next day, and while I certainly feel better than I did yesterday, and I know I won't even care in a week or two, I'm still pissed.
Later today, event #11, $530 no limit with $3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool. This one is a 2 day event.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
ACK!
I totally blew it in the satellite. I finished 6th. Don't really want to relive it right now so updates will have to wait until tomorrow. In fact I wish I could just get my money back from these stupid tournaments I'm in right now. This is one of those times that this job really sucks!!!!
Event #7 $215 PL 5-card Draw underway
We started with 844 players each with 5,000 chips. Since pokerstars guaranteed a $200,000 prize pool and there weren't enough players to meet that guarantee they had to add $18,500 to the prize pool. That's $22 a person, but since normally they'd be taking $15 a person out of the prize pool it's $37 a person in value that wouldn't be there if we hit 1,000 entrants.
After 2 hours of play I have 4,500 chips. I snapped off a major bluff in the first few hands and was up to 8,500, but thing have been pretty dry since then.
In the 50,000 FPPP satellite we started with 38 players which meant a much more significant $271 per player overlay! We started with 3,000 chips each and with 18 players left I have 3,750. The average stack is 6,400 and I need to finish in the top 4 to win $10,300.
After 2 hours of play I have 4,500 chips. I snapped off a major bluff in the first few hands and was up to 8,500, but thing have been pretty dry since then.
In the 50,000 FPPP satellite we started with 38 players which meant a much more significant $271 per player overlay! We started with 3,000 chips each and with 18 players left I have 3,750. The average stack is 6,400 and I need to finish in the top 4 to win $10,300.
Note to the Backers
Backers I told you that you wouldn't be in on any satellites where pokerstars added seats to the prize pool. I'm going to make and exception becauase there is one with lots of added value, but a hefty price tag as well. It's a 50,000 FPP (worth $750) buy in satellite to the $10,300 event. Pokerstars is adding one seat and there are only 34 people signed up with 1 minute to go. Thats like adding $300 a person to the prize pool. Not something I can pass up, but $750 is a lot for one satellite. Good luck to us all!
WCOOP Small Change of Plans
For some reason I got confused about the start time of event #6 $109 NLH WCOOP event and slept right through the registration period. Who cares about a $109 no limit tournament anyway right?
So it's time for plan B, and plan B is event #7 $215 pot limit 5-card draw! Ask me what I know about 5-card draw...NOTHING!
Well not quite nothing, but I can saw for sure that I haven't played more than a few hundred hands of high draw in my poker career (neglecting my pre-teen and early teen years). But let me tell you why I think I have a chance.
1) Despite what you might think from TV and movies, nobody plays draw.
2) The math is the same as other poker variations so I can figured out on the fly what I should do in many situations.
3) Nobody plays draw.
4) Tournament tactics transfer from game to game
5) Lastly, nobody plays draw.
Nobody plays draw because it's boring as hell. One of the reasons it's so boring is the strategy is fairly simplistic and there are only two betting rounds. So I don't expect to be surrounded by draw experts who ruthlessly stomp me. Instead I should be up against a bunch of other tournament players who are working out the kinks as they go just like me. I like my chances of doing that better.
As an added bonus pokerstars has guaranteed a $200,000 prize pool which means if there are fewer than 930 entrants there will be money added to the prize pool. 4 minutes to start time there are 559 players signed up and I expect there will be between 700 and 800 when the hour long late registration is done.
At 1:30 I have event #8 $215 limit hold'em and I have a few other non WCOOP tournaments on my schedule today. Hopefully I can make some magic happen.
So it's time for plan B, and plan B is event #7 $215 pot limit 5-card draw! Ask me what I know about 5-card draw...NOTHING!
Well not quite nothing, but I can saw for sure that I haven't played more than a few hundred hands of high draw in my poker career (neglecting my pre-teen and early teen years). But let me tell you why I think I have a chance.
1) Despite what you might think from TV and movies, nobody plays draw.
2) The math is the same as other poker variations so I can figured out on the fly what I should do in many situations.
3) Nobody plays draw.
4) Tournament tactics transfer from game to game
5) Lastly, nobody plays draw.
Nobody plays draw because it's boring as hell. One of the reasons it's so boring is the strategy is fairly simplistic and there are only two betting rounds. So I don't expect to be surrounded by draw experts who ruthlessly stomp me. Instead I should be up against a bunch of other tournament players who are working out the kinks as they go just like me. I like my chances of doing that better.
As an added bonus pokerstars has guaranteed a $200,000 prize pool which means if there are fewer than 930 entrants there will be money added to the prize pool. 4 minutes to start time there are 559 players signed up and I expect there will be between 700 and 800 when the hour long late registration is done.
At 1:30 I have event #8 $215 limit hold'em and I have a few other non WCOOP tournaments on my schedule today. Hopefully I can make some magic happen.
Friday, September 04, 2009
WCOOP Event #5 underway!
Event #5 is $109 8-game mixed. We started with 1,779 players each with 3,000 chips. In this format every five minutes the game changes. Starting with 2-7 triple draw lowball, followed by limit hold'em, limit Omaha hi-lo, razz, 7-card stud, stud hi-lo, PLO and no limit hold'em. So after 40 minutes you will have played a few hands of each game in the mix. This format suit me very well because I play all of the games well if not very well and most of the other players aren't comfortable with all the games (it's usually the triple draw or one of the Omaha's that they have trouble with).
This tournament is meant to go quickly since it has such a small buy in relative to the other WCOOP tournaments and because it has a late start time. After and hour we've lost almost 30% of the field. In contrast, later in the series there is a $320 8-game tournament where we'll start with 5,000 chips and the game will change every ten minutes. Also at the end of the series there is a $2,100 8-game tournament where the game will change every 15 minutes and you get 10,000 chips to start.
Off to a slow start I only have 2,000 of the 3,000 chips I started with left and we're already playing 200/400 stakes so it could be a quick exit.
This tournament is meant to go quickly since it has such a small buy in relative to the other WCOOP tournaments and because it has a late start time. After and hour we've lost almost 30% of the field. In contrast, later in the series there is a $320 8-game tournament where we'll start with 5,000 chips and the game will change every ten minutes. Also at the end of the series there is a $2,100 8-game tournament where the game will change every 15 minutes and you get 10,000 chips to start.
Off to a slow start I only have 2,000 of the 3,000 chips I started with left and we're already playing 200/400 stakes so it could be a quick exit.
Event #3 Recap
I finished 248th which paid $361. I was down to about 10,000 and then I got it all in with AA85 vs AKKK which is about as far as you're ever going to be ahead preflop in PLO. That brought me back to 20K which was still only half of average.
I slipped back to 15K or so and then got dealt AQT2 with 2 spades and two diamonds. The blinds were 500/1,000 and I brought it in for 3K. The big blind who was a bronze star and played like it called me with KTT5 which is total garbage. The flop came down AT5 giving me two pair and my opponent a set of tens. He bet 3,000 and I moved all in. No miracles and that was it.
Since I almost didn't put this one on my schedule I feel great about this result.
I slipped back to 15K or so and then got dealt AQT2 with 2 spades and two diamonds. The blinds were 500/1,000 and I brought it in for 3K. The big blind who was a bronze star and played like it called me with KTT5 which is total garbage. The flop came down AT5 giving me two pair and my opponent a set of tens. He bet 3,000 and I moved all in. No miracles and that was it.
Since I almost didn't put this one on my schedule I feel great about this result.
In the Money!
I made the money in the PLO. Right now I have 29,800 chips. Average is 32,500 and I'm in 194th place of 420. In order to show a $1,000 profit I have to make it all the way to 54th so there is a long way to go before this gets serious. Still it's nice to get a cash upder my belt in this years WCOOP.
Event #3 update
I've posted a few updates on the twitter part of the blog on the right side, but I thought it was time for a more significant update. My table is interesting. There is one guy "annekchillo" who is playing a ton of hands and taking some of them too far. I'm surprised he hasn't gone broke. Instead he's up to 22K.
Another guy is the opposite. If he's betting or in there at all he's got something good. The other players haven't made a strong impression on me, but I don't feel like any of them are great.
I've slipped a little and now have 18,000 chips which puts me in 249th of 937.
I've decided to pass on the $109 second chance PLO. Event #5 starts at 5:00 and if I go broke in Event #3 I want to take a break. If I don't get a break at least I should make the money.
Another guy is the opposite. If he's betting or in there at all he's got something good. The other players haven't made a strong impression on me, but I don't feel like any of them are great.
I've slipped a little and now have 18,000 chips which puts me in 249th of 937.
I've decided to pass on the $109 second chance PLO. Event #5 starts at 5:00 and if I go broke in Event #3 I want to take a break. If I don't get a break at least I should make the money.
WCOOP Event #3 $215 PLO 6-max underway!
For those of you who don't know what Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) is let me tell you! Everything works just like hold'em except you get 4 cards instead of 2. In hold'em you use the 5 cards on the board and the 2 cards in your hand to make your best 5 card hand. On the other hand in PLO you use TWO cards from your hand and THREE from the board to make your best 5 card hand. So if you get dealt JJJJ you don't have four of a kind, all you have is a pair of jacks. Of if you have AAAK and the board is A 2 3 4 5, you don't have 4 aces and you don't have a 5 high straight, your best hand in 3 aces. Also in no limit hold'em you can bet as many chips as you have in your stack, whereas in PLO you can only bet as much as is in the pot already.
We started with 2,738 players each with 5,000 chips. I signed up about 50 minutes late (there is no penalty for doing so, you just miss the first few levels) because I was busy taking care of e-mails, but won a big hand early.
I got dealt 4567 with the 57 of hearts. Hands where all of your cards are in order are strong because they lend themselves to many straight possibilities. Four players just called to me and I made it 300 to go. Only one player called. The flop came down 6 6 8 with two hearts, meaning I had three of a kind, a straight draw, a flush draw, a full house draw and a straight flush draw. The value of the straight and flush draw were diminished by the fact that there was a pair on the board, but it was still a pretty strong flop.
I bet 750 into the 750 chip pot and my opponent called. The turn was the J of clubs putting two clubs out there. I wasn't really sure what to do here, but I decided to check. When my opponent bet 750 into the 2,250 pot I read him for weakness and moved all in for about 3,500. He thought for a second and then called with AK97 with 3 clubs which was a straight draw and a flush draw, but I had a lot of his cards locked out since some of his outs would make me a full house or a flush. In fact only 8 cards (three 10's and 5 clubs) would make him the best hand. The river was another jack and I took down the 9,000 chip pot.
After a few more small ones I'm up to 10,450 with 1,955 players left. The edge of the money is 420th which pays $296 and 1st place is $86,247.
We started with 2,738 players each with 5,000 chips. I signed up about 50 minutes late (there is no penalty for doing so, you just miss the first few levels) because I was busy taking care of e-mails, but won a big hand early.
I got dealt 4567 with the 57 of hearts. Hands where all of your cards are in order are strong because they lend themselves to many straight possibilities. Four players just called to me and I made it 300 to go. Only one player called. The flop came down 6 6 8 with two hearts, meaning I had three of a kind, a straight draw, a flush draw, a full house draw and a straight flush draw. The value of the straight and flush draw were diminished by the fact that there was a pair on the board, but it was still a pretty strong flop.
I bet 750 into the 750 chip pot and my opponent called. The turn was the J of clubs putting two clubs out there. I wasn't really sure what to do here, but I decided to check. When my opponent bet 750 into the 2,250 pot I read him for weakness and moved all in for about 3,500. He thought for a second and then called with AK97 with 3 clubs which was a straight draw and a flush draw, but I had a lot of his cards locked out since some of his outs would make me a full house or a flush. In fact only 8 cards (three 10's and 5 clubs) would make him the best hand. The river was another jack and I took down the 9,000 chip pot.
After a few more small ones I'm up to 10,450 with 1,955 players left. The edge of the money is 420th which pays $296 and 1st place is $86,247.
WCOOP Update
My internet (and TV!) was out for a full 24 hours, but the problem seem to be fixed. This morning my wife Jen spoke to our cable and internet provider Comcast and they said out whole area was having problems. At 11:00 or so we saw a comcast truck pull up near out house and 15 minutes later the TV and internet started working again. 15 minutes after that I went up to my desk looked out a different window and saw FOUR MORE COMCAST TRUCKS! I guess someone in my neighborhood has some clout!
So WCOOP should go according to plan today hopefully. I have 6 handed PLO has already started, but I'm going to register late for, and $109 8-game mixed games at 5:00 PT.
In other news I forgot about the Second Chance tournaments! 3 hours after every WCOOP event they offer a tournament with the same game and format, but smaller buy in and shorter levels. These tournaments are designed to give people who busted out of the main WCOOP events another chance to win some money and get even. Guess who are the best players to play against? The ones who bust out early and are trying to get even. Of course there will be other strong players in these tournaments, but they still should be quite profitable. I'm not going to play them all, but I'm going to play the majority of them.
Note to my backers: The second chance tournaments will be part of the package so you have a piece of that action! If for some reason you do not want a piece of the second chance tournaments let me know ASAP. Your max loss is still the same and I'm still working with a $20,000 bankroll. If for some reason I get totally bamboozled in second chance tournaments, satellites and WCOOP events I will cut out a few of the higher buy in less desirable tournaments on my schedule.
So WCOOP should go according to plan today hopefully. I have 6 handed PLO has already started, but I'm going to register late for, and $109 8-game mixed games at 5:00 PT.
In other news I forgot about the Second Chance tournaments! 3 hours after every WCOOP event they offer a tournament with the same game and format, but smaller buy in and shorter levels. These tournaments are designed to give people who busted out of the main WCOOP events another chance to win some money and get even. Guess who are the best players to play against? The ones who bust out early and are trying to get even. Of course there will be other strong players in these tournaments, but they still should be quite profitable. I'm not going to play them all, but I'm going to play the majority of them.
Note to my backers: The second chance tournaments will be part of the package so you have a piece of that action! If for some reason you do not want a piece of the second chance tournaments let me know ASAP. Your max loss is still the same and I'm still working with a $20,000 bankroll. If for some reason I get totally bamboozled in second chance tournaments, satellites and WCOOP events I will cut out a few of the higher buy in less desirable tournaments on my schedule.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Event #2 Underway!
I never should have registered for this stupid Razz tournament! My internet problems have continued and I'm now playing at "wescafe" (that's really what it's called).
I'm down to 2,845 chips from 5,000. After 150 minutes of play we're down to 1486 players from the 1526 who started. It sure does take a long time for people to get eliminated in these limit tournaments!
The edge of the money is 224th which pays $308. The way today has been going I feel like I have about a 1 in 25,000 chance of making the money. I guess I shouldn't say that. I did win $500 in about 15 minutes playing $15/$30 at Matt's, but running all over the place in the middle of these tournaments is making me nuts!
1st place is $53,410.
I'm down to 2,845 chips from 5,000. After 150 minutes of play we're down to 1486 players from the 1526 who started. It sure does take a long time for people to get eliminated in these limit tournaments!
The edge of the money is 224th which pays $308. The way today has been going I feel like I have about a 1 in 25,000 chance of making the money. I guess I shouldn't say that. I did win $500 in about 15 minutes playing $15/$30 at Matt's, but running all over the place in the middle of these tournaments is making me nuts!
1st place is $53,410.
Event #1 Recap
I finished 4,323rd. Once the blinds got significant I had a ton of tough decisions.
The first one came when I made a bluff that didn't work out, but could have if I fired one more barrel. With blinds of 50/100 the player in the cutoff made it 300 to go and I called out of the big blind with 97 of hearts. The flop came down K 6 4, I checked and my opponent bet 400. I decided to make a move thinking if my opponent didn't have a king he couldn't call a raise. I made it 1,200 and my opponent called.
The turn brought the 3 of hearts which gave me a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. I bet 2,000 into the 3,000 chip pot and again my opponent called. Now I was pretty sure he had a K and figured I needed to hit to win. The river was a ten, we both checked and he took the pot with 67. After that hand I was down to about 6,000.
A few hands later I got dealt TT. The first player to act made it 300 to go and I reraised to 900. To my surprise the small blind called the 900 which looked like AA or KK to me.
The flop came down 778 and both of my opponents check to me. This was a really tough spot. I had an overpair, but also a read that I was up against an overpair. In retrospect I think I should have trusted my read a little more and just checked. But I bet 1,500 and got called by the small blind. The other player folded, the turn came out another 7 and my opponent moved all in. I wanted to call, but decided to fold. After that hand I was down to about 3,500.
I caught a nice break a few hands later when I reraised a player all in with TT and he called with 99. All of a sudden I was back to 7,000.
Miscellaneous hands here and there took me back down to 3,500 and then I got it all in preflop with AQ suited vs AK. No miracles and that was it.
The first one came when I made a bluff that didn't work out, but could have if I fired one more barrel. With blinds of 50/100 the player in the cutoff made it 300 to go and I called out of the big blind with 97 of hearts. The flop came down K 6 4, I checked and my opponent bet 400. I decided to make a move thinking if my opponent didn't have a king he couldn't call a raise. I made it 1,200 and my opponent called.
The turn brought the 3 of hearts which gave me a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. I bet 2,000 into the 3,000 chip pot and again my opponent called. Now I was pretty sure he had a K and figured I needed to hit to win. The river was a ten, we both checked and he took the pot with 67. After that hand I was down to about 6,000.
A few hands later I got dealt TT. The first player to act made it 300 to go and I reraised to 900. To my surprise the small blind called the 900 which looked like AA or KK to me.
The flop came down 778 and both of my opponents check to me. This was a really tough spot. I had an overpair, but also a read that I was up against an overpair. In retrospect I think I should have trusted my read a little more and just checked. But I bet 1,500 and got called by the small blind. The other player folded, the turn came out another 7 and my opponent moved all in. I wanted to call, but decided to fold. After that hand I was down to about 3,500.
I caught a nice break a few hands later when I reraised a player all in with TT and he called with 99. All of a sudden I was back to 7,000.
Miscellaneous hands here and there took me back down to 3,500 and then I got it all in preflop with AQ suited vs AK. No miracles and that was it.
Event #1 Prizes
Forgot to mention that we started with 8,538 players. The edge of the money is 1,350th place which pays $290. To net $1,000 I have to make it to 114th place. To net $5,000 I have to make it to 36th place. 18th pays $10,245, 6th is $23,940 3rd is $119,532 and 1st is $247,602.
The last time my Internet went out I made the a final table. It could be destiny.
Also I decided to play the Razz which is now underway.
The last time my Internet went out I made the a final table. It could be destiny.
Also I decided to play the Razz which is now underway.
WCOOP Event #1 ($215 NLH 6-max) Underway
The 2009 WCOOP is officially underway! After 2 hours of play in Event #1 my starting stack of 5,000 chips is all the way down to 4,800. While it's been a super boring two hours in terms of the tournament I've been dealing with drama in another area - my Internet connection.
Right at 11:30 as the tournament was starting my Internet went out. I messed with the router and then the modem, but with not results. Eventually I checked the to see if the cable was out and it was. We get our Internet through our cable provider and obviously they are having some problems today.
I managed to log on to an unsecured network that no doubt belongs to one of my neighbors. But the signal was weak and I kept losing my connection. About 12:30 out TV starting working again and my Internet was back! "Ah ha!" I thought. Crisis over!
Wrong! 30 minutes later I was back on my neighbors network and cursing all technology. It was a real F-bomb parade.
I decided to take drastic measures and head over to my friend Matt's house which is where I am now watching a terrible movie where Goldie Hawn is some kind of high school football coach, fighting off a small white dog who seems to think I am the most exciting thing since the invention of canned dog food.
I have 45 minutes to decide if I want to play the Razz tournament, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. Even if things go poorly from the start I can't see going broke for 4 or 5 hours and I'm not sure if I want to intrude on Matt's day any more than necessary.
Right at 11:30 as the tournament was starting my Internet went out. I messed with the router and then the modem, but with not results. Eventually I checked the to see if the cable was out and it was. We get our Internet through our cable provider and obviously they are having some problems today.
I managed to log on to an unsecured network that no doubt belongs to one of my neighbors. But the signal was weak and I kept losing my connection. About 12:30 out TV starting working again and my Internet was back! "Ah ha!" I thought. Crisis over!
Wrong! 30 minutes later I was back on my neighbors network and cursing all technology. It was a real F-bomb parade.
I decided to take drastic measures and head over to my friend Matt's house which is where I am now watching a terrible movie where Goldie Hawn is some kind of high school football coach, fighting off a small white dog who seems to think I am the most exciting thing since the invention of canned dog food.
I have 45 minutes to decide if I want to play the Razz tournament, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. Even if things go poorly from the start I can't see going broke for 4 or 5 hours and I'm not sure if I want to intrude on Matt's day any more than necessary.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
My 2009 WCOOP Schedule
WCOOP STARTS TOMORROW! This year's World Championship of Online Poker features 45 events with buy ins ranging from $109 to $25,500 and $40,000,000 in guaranteed prize money. I'm going to play about 30 events. Here is my schedule:
Event Date Time (ET) Buy-in Game Guarantee
1 3-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em [6-max] $1,250,000
2 3-Sep 16:30 $215 Razz $200,000
3 4-Sep 14:30 $215 PL Omaha [6-max] $500,000
5 4-Sep 20:00 $109 8-Game [5-minute levels] $50,000
6 5-Sep 12:45 $109 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
8 5-Sep 16:30 $215 FL Hold’em $400,000
9 6-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
11 6-Sep 16:30 $530 NL Hold’em [2-day] $3,000,000
12 7-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold'em [4-max] $500,000
13 7-Sep 16:30 $320 7-Card Stud $150,000
14 8-Sep 14:30 $320 Mixed Hold'em [6-max] $300,000
16 8-Sep 20:00 $1,050 NL Hold’em $500,000
17 9-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em Triple Shootout [10-max] $500,000
18 9-Sep 16:30 $320 8-Game $300,000
20 10-Sep 16:30 $320 FL Triple Draw 2-7 $100,000
21 11-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em w/rebuys $1,250,000
22 11-Sep 16:30 $530 FL Omaha Hi/Lo $400,000
23 11-Sep 20:00 $320 NL Hold'em [10-minute levels] $300,000
24 12-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em [Heads-up Match Play] $1,000,000
25 12-Sep 16:30 $320 HORSE $400,000
26 13-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
28 13-Sep 16:30 $1,050 NL Hold’em [2-day] $3,000,000
29 14-Sep 14:30 $320 Mixed [PL Hold'em, PL Omaha] $400,000
30 14-Sep 16:30 $320 NL Hold’em [2X Chance] $600,000
33 15-Sep 20:00 $1,050 NL Hold’em $500,000
34 16-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em [big antes] $500,000
38 18-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em [1R1A] $1,000,000
39 18-Sep 16:30 $1,050 FL Hold’em [6-max] $400,000
40 18-Sep 20:00 $215 NL Omaha Hi/Lo [10-minute levels] $200,000
42 19-Sep 16:30 $2,100 8-Game $350,000
43 20-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
45 20-Sep 16:30 $5,200 NL Hold’em Main Event [2-day] $10,000,000
I'm starting with a $20,000 bankroll which is enough to play all of the tournaments listed. I expect to play some satellites as well. There are one or two other tournaments like $530 6-max NLH with rebuys that I might play if things are going well. Also event #44 is $10,300 HORSE. If I can satellite my way into that one or if I'm ahead $100,000 or more I'll play that one too.
I'll be posting previews, updates, and results daily or a few times a day. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time, I'm sure you know that I'll have great updates at the beginning and then I'll get tired of blogging every day and they'll get shorter and shorter and farther apart. But I'll do my best to keep it interesting.
If you want to watch the action unfold as it happens you can go to pokerstars.com and download the software. Once you've done that you can go to "requests" and then "find a player" and search for ACESEDAI which is my username.
I'm fired up!
Event Date Time (ET) Buy-in Game Guarantee
1 3-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em [6-max] $1,250,000
2 3-Sep 16:30 $215 Razz $200,000
3 4-Sep 14:30 $215 PL Omaha [6-max] $500,000
5 4-Sep 20:00 $109 8-Game [5-minute levels] $50,000
6 5-Sep 12:45 $109 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
8 5-Sep 16:30 $215 FL Hold’em $400,000
9 6-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
11 6-Sep 16:30 $530 NL Hold’em [2-day] $3,000,000
12 7-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold'em [4-max] $500,000
13 7-Sep 16:30 $320 7-Card Stud $150,000
14 8-Sep 14:30 $320 Mixed Hold'em [6-max] $300,000
16 8-Sep 20:00 $1,050 NL Hold’em $500,000
17 9-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em Triple Shootout [10-max] $500,000
18 9-Sep 16:30 $320 8-Game $300,000
20 10-Sep 16:30 $320 FL Triple Draw 2-7 $100,000
21 11-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em w/rebuys $1,250,000
22 11-Sep 16:30 $530 FL Omaha Hi/Lo $400,000
23 11-Sep 20:00 $320 NL Hold'em [10-minute levels] $300,000
24 12-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em [Heads-up Match Play] $1,000,000
25 12-Sep 16:30 $320 HORSE $400,000
26 13-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
28 13-Sep 16:30 $1,050 NL Hold’em [2-day] $3,000,000
29 14-Sep 14:30 $320 Mixed [PL Hold'em, PL Omaha] $400,000
30 14-Sep 16:30 $320 NL Hold’em [2X Chance] $600,000
33 15-Sep 20:00 $1,050 NL Hold’em $500,000
34 16-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em [big antes] $500,000
38 18-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em [1R1A] $1,000,000
39 18-Sep 16:30 $1,050 FL Hold’em [6-max] $400,000
40 18-Sep 20:00 $215 NL Omaha Hi/Lo [10-minute levels] $200,000
42 19-Sep 16:30 $2,100 8-Game $350,000
43 20-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
45 20-Sep 16:30 $5,200 NL Hold’em Main Event [2-day] $10,000,000
I'm starting with a $20,000 bankroll which is enough to play all of the tournaments listed. I expect to play some satellites as well. There are one or two other tournaments like $530 6-max NLH with rebuys that I might play if things are going well. Also event #44 is $10,300 HORSE. If I can satellite my way into that one or if I'm ahead $100,000 or more I'll play that one too.
I'll be posting previews, updates, and results daily or a few times a day. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time, I'm sure you know that I'll have great updates at the beginning and then I'll get tired of blogging every day and they'll get shorter and shorter and farther apart. But I'll do my best to keep it interesting.
If you want to watch the action unfold as it happens you can go to pokerstars.com and download the software. Once you've done that you can go to "requests" and then "find a player" and search for ACESEDAI which is my username.
I'm fired up!
A little update
I've been really bad about updating my blog lately so before I get to the WCOOP here is a little summary of recent events. I put my NL hold'em cash game experiment on hold, but I am gong to finish it...someday. 4,000 hands in I'm ahead about $200 which isn't exactly earth shattering.
A week or so ago I made a final table finishing 6th of 750+ entrants in a $109 NL hold'em tournament. That paid $3,150. But I dropped $3,000 playing $30/$60 two days later. Whoops!
Other than that one nasty session, I've been continueing to have strong results in the 6 handed limit cash games. Anytime poekrstars offers a reload deposit bonus the games are very good for a month or so and since they did just that in August, things have been going smoothly.
I decided pretty early on this year to not go for Supernova Elite status again this year. I had a rough January and February and fell pretty far behind. Right now I have about 470,000 VPPs for the year and expect to end the year with 600,000 since I'll pick up a $6,000 bonus for reaching that mark (the next milestone bonus isn't until 800,000 VPPs which would require another 300+ hours of work). So the end of this year should be relaitvly relaxing and nothing like last year where I worked something like 58 of the last 60 days of the year.
A week or so ago I made a final table finishing 6th of 750+ entrants in a $109 NL hold'em tournament. That paid $3,150. But I dropped $3,000 playing $30/$60 two days later. Whoops!
Other than that one nasty session, I've been continueing to have strong results in the 6 handed limit cash games. Anytime poekrstars offers a reload deposit bonus the games are very good for a month or so and since they did just that in August, things have been going smoothly.
I decided pretty early on this year to not go for Supernova Elite status again this year. I had a rough January and February and fell pretty far behind. Right now I have about 470,000 VPPs for the year and expect to end the year with 600,000 since I'll pick up a $6,000 bonus for reaching that mark (the next milestone bonus isn't until 800,000 VPPs which would require another 300+ hours of work). So the end of this year should be relaitvly relaxing and nothing like last year where I worked something like 58 of the last 60 days of the year.
Friday, August 21, 2009
NL Experiment Day #2
I've made a small change to my game plan. I was realizing it would be stupid to skip out on the good limit games that the weekend tends to provide so I could play no limit games. So my new plan is to play ten 1,000 hand sessions.
Session #2 was a moderate success and consisted of 1,017 hands. I was ahead over $1,000 at one point, but gave most of it back. In the end I made a net profit of $159 which was surprising when I saw that I only won 26 of 64 (40%) hands that went to showdown. That seems like a recipe for disaster, but somehow I managed a win. I made .73 base FPPs per hand during this session which is pretty close to what I think I can expect long term.
Session #2 was a moderate success and consisted of 1,017 hands. I was ahead over $1,000 at one point, but gave most of it back. In the end I made a net profit of $159 which was surprising when I saw that I only won 26 of 64 (40%) hands that went to showdown. That seems like a recipe for disaster, but somehow I managed a win. I made .73 base FPPs per hand during this session which is pretty close to what I think I can expect long term.
My E-Mail
I've gotten a response from a few people who are interested in some professional poker coaching. If there is anyone else out there who is interested you can e-mail me at wesdave1279@yahoo.com.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
No Limit Experiment Day 1
I couldn't sleep last night so I ended up sleeping until 1 in the afternoon. As a result my productivity was lacking today. I only played 1,000 hands and struggled from the start. I kept getting my whole stack in on the flop with 9, 12 or 15 out semibluffs, got called frequnbetly and caught a bunch of bricks.
I lost $769, but at one point I was stuck close to $2,000 and didn't get much help from the deck so I feel OK about it. Hopefully tomorrow I can get my ass out of bed and bust out at least 2,500 hands.
I lost $769, but at one point I was stuck close to $2,000 and didn't get much help from the deck so I feel OK about it. Hopefully tomorrow I can get my ass out of bed and bust out at least 2,500 hands.
10,000 Hands of No Limit Cash Games
Anyone who plays poker seriously will tell you that the games are much better at night than during the day. Many of the pros want to live normal lives so they play during the day and relax at night (some of them are sickos who play just about every waking moment and play at all hours). On the other hand, for working people playing poker is the relaxing.
Of course things get a little hazy when you consider than when it's morning here it's evening in Europe and well while we're at it we can throw in the rest of the world too. But since 80%+ of the players on pokerstars are from the US for the most part thinking of day and night matters when you're trying to find the best games.
The point I'm getting to is my normal 6-max limit games suck in the morning! I need something else to do when the games are bad. European players almost always play no limit or pot limit games so getting the evening crowd from Paris, Amsterdam, London and Moscow is out of the question.
On top of that no limit hold'em is where all the newbies, rookies, and total novices are. That is where the growth of poker is right now.
I've had two stretches of four or five months where I played almost exclusively no limit cash games. The first time around I won $11,000 the first month and $17,000 the next. I'd thought I'd hit the big time. Then I lost $11,000 the next month (still my worst month ever) and broke even the month after that. The second time around I bailed out because I wanted to go for Supernova Elite and I calculated that 6 handed limit cash games were the best way to do that.
Now I'm thinking NL cash might be worth another shot. I've dabbled a little playing 500 hand blocks here and there this month and I've had some success. More importantly I'm shocked at how bad the play is and how unprepared the players at the mid stakes are for very aggressive play. Also the specific way that FPPs are computed has changed in the past two years so now I'll be able to make more points than I used to.
My plan is to do a little bit of a stronger testing of the waters. Between now and Sunday I'm going to play 10,000 hands of $2/$4 blinds 6 handed no limit cash buying into each game for $200 (half the max). If I run my stack up to $400 or more I'll jump out of that game and into a new one with a fresh $200 stack. This will hopefully keep me from facing the difficult decisions that come up playing deep stacked which can be extra tough when you don't know any of the players!
While 10,000 hands is a pretty small sample size and $2/$4 is pretty small stakes for me these days (I've played as high as $25/$50 blinds). But it's a good place to start and get acclimated to the style of play. Breaking even or having a small win or loss won't tell me much, but if I break off a $5,000 win that will tell me something. While this isn't nearly a sufficient sample size to precisely predict my long term results in terms of game play, it's plenty to tell me how many FPPS I can expect to make long term. I think it's going to be about .75 base FPPs per hand and I'm thinking 10 cents a hand (or $1,000 total for my experiment) is par for the course.
I'll try to keep you posted. I'll also try not to totally blow off this experiment which is the kind of thing I've done in the past. I'm trying to be a new man these days. A better man. And one of the things a better me is going to do is do what I say I'm going to do!
Of course things get a little hazy when you consider than when it's morning here it's evening in Europe and well while we're at it we can throw in the rest of the world too. But since 80%+ of the players on pokerstars are from the US for the most part thinking of day and night matters when you're trying to find the best games.
The point I'm getting to is my normal 6-max limit games suck in the morning! I need something else to do when the games are bad. European players almost always play no limit or pot limit games so getting the evening crowd from Paris, Amsterdam, London and Moscow is out of the question.
On top of that no limit hold'em is where all the newbies, rookies, and total novices are. That is where the growth of poker is right now.
I've had two stretches of four or five months where I played almost exclusively no limit cash games. The first time around I won $11,000 the first month and $17,000 the next. I'd thought I'd hit the big time. Then I lost $11,000 the next month (still my worst month ever) and broke even the month after that. The second time around I bailed out because I wanted to go for Supernova Elite and I calculated that 6 handed limit cash games were the best way to do that.
Now I'm thinking NL cash might be worth another shot. I've dabbled a little playing 500 hand blocks here and there this month and I've had some success. More importantly I'm shocked at how bad the play is and how unprepared the players at the mid stakes are for very aggressive play. Also the specific way that FPPs are computed has changed in the past two years so now I'll be able to make more points than I used to.
My plan is to do a little bit of a stronger testing of the waters. Between now and Sunday I'm going to play 10,000 hands of $2/$4 blinds 6 handed no limit cash buying into each game for $200 (half the max). If I run my stack up to $400 or more I'll jump out of that game and into a new one with a fresh $200 stack. This will hopefully keep me from facing the difficult decisions that come up playing deep stacked which can be extra tough when you don't know any of the players!
While 10,000 hands is a pretty small sample size and $2/$4 is pretty small stakes for me these days (I've played as high as $25/$50 blinds). But it's a good place to start and get acclimated to the style of play. Breaking even or having a small win or loss won't tell me much, but if I break off a $5,000 win that will tell me something. While this isn't nearly a sufficient sample size to precisely predict my long term results in terms of game play, it's plenty to tell me how many FPPS I can expect to make long term. I think it's going to be about .75 base FPPs per hand and I'm thinking 10 cents a hand (or $1,000 total for my experiment) is par for the course.
I'll try to keep you posted. I'll also try not to totally blow off this experiment which is the kind of thing I've done in the past. I'm trying to be a new man these days. A better man. And one of the things a better me is going to do is do what I say I'm going to do!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Taking it to the Next Level
Here is a comment that was left on my last post:
I have been reading your blog regularly since I learned about it from Sfgate. I am really passionate about the game but have had limited success so far despite reading a number of books and playing regularly. I am ~$5K up since starting to play in 04 primarily due to a few big multi table turny wins - otherwise I am pretty break even if not losing player. How do I take the game to the next level? Also, do you use any software or not of any software that is easy to use and is useful to categorize players or get guidance on your actions?
Thanks,
-IK
This is a great question and after a little thought I have a response. First of all let me say that while I don't regularly give poker lessons, I have in the past. If you want to do a few lessons for $50 an hour I'm sure I can help you to some extent. If you're interested you can e-mail me privately.
With that out of the way let me first of all say that there is no magic bullet. The top pros don't have secrets per se. To my knowledge there isn't any software that is so powerful that it will give you a massive edge. No one book has the answers.
The most important thing is experience. But I've seen the same mopes playing $3/$6 every day losing slowly at the Oaks club for the last 10 years. So clearly experience isn't everything.
Tactical knowledge that you get from books, articles, and discussion with other players is probably next on the list. But when you get to the higher levels most of the players have read a few books so that really just gets you to an even playing field with many of your opponents.
Emotional control is very important. One of my best friends is extremely smart. He is way smarter than I am and smarter than all of my friends (most of whom are Berkeley grads). He is extremely good at board games and has been playing poker seriously off and on for 20 years. He should be a great poker player. But he has no self control so he can't make any money playing poker. Losing makes him nuts so he starts playing too many hands, and moving up limits until he's lost so much that he has to quit. Last year he had 17 winning sessions in a row playing $5/$10 and won thousands of dollars. But then he had a session where he was losing badly so he jumped to $10/$20, and then to $30/$60 and lost $8,000 in a matter of hours. This same thing happened to him on 5 or 6 occasions over a year and a half where he'd win 80% of his sessions playing the smaller games, win $4,000 or $5,000 and then give it all back in one massive meltdown. He just couldn't stop himself.
I know it's stupid to chase your losses like that, but I still do the same thing sometimes! I've played in my share of marginal $50/$100 games and $100/$200 games hoping to get even. And we've all played hands in ways that aren't optimal because we're upset about losing. Self control is tough.
Fearlessness is very important too. You can't be afraid to lose. If conditions are right you have to be willing to risk more than you're really comfortable with.
On the other hand if conditions are poor you have to not play those stakes or games even if they are the most fun.
I could go on and on (I've actually gone on more than i planned to already) about what you need to be a great poker player. The point I wanted to get to is you have to put it all together.
Every time you play you have to take it seriously. Never screw around. Never play hands you shouldn't because you're bored or upset. Never give anything away or pass up an edge. Fight for every dollar, every time.
On top of that you need to specialize. Pick the game that is most profitable for your style of play and strengths and play that game almost all the time. Of course I do other things like play tournaments or mixed games, but 90% of my time is devoted to 6 handed limit cash games. When I was playing sit-n-goes for a living in 2004 and 2005 that's all I played. 9 handed, $114 SNGs, all day, every day. I played thousands and thousands of them. I've played millions of hands of 6 handed limit. So when someone who has read the books and played 50,000 hands sits down in my game thinking they are the shit, they have no chance against me.
On top of that, multitable tournaments are a real leak for most players. Even if you're playing with positive expectation that expectation is only realized when you finish in the top few spots. Most players can play well between hand one and the money or even well into the money. But when there are 20 players left in a 1,000 player tournament or they are at the final table, they lock up. Or they just don't have the experience or fearlessness is such a tough, stressful situation to seal the deal.
If you're playing against 1,000+ person fields it takes tens of thousands of tournaments for the luck factor to even out. Stick to tournaments that have smaller fields or play in special events (like the Sunday Million or WCOOP or whatever) that are loaded with satellite qualifiers.
Lastly, (this is very important) make sure you are getting rakeback (check out rakebacknation.com if you have no idea what I'm talking about) or making the most of other bonuses like FPPs, deposit and reload bonuses. I saw someone elses blog briefly who was playing SNGs for a living. He'd won $5,000 for the year in actual play and made $200,000 in bonuses and rakeback. More than half of my income is from FPPs and bonuses. It's a huge deal!
I'm not sure how helpful that was, but hopefully that at least made sense. I welcome any questions you might have or if anyone else wants to add their two cents feel free. Thanks for the comment!
I have been reading your blog regularly since I learned about it from Sfgate. I am really passionate about the game but have had limited success so far despite reading a number of books and playing regularly. I am ~$5K up since starting to play in 04 primarily due to a few big multi table turny wins - otherwise I am pretty break even if not losing player. How do I take the game to the next level? Also, do you use any software or not of any software that is easy to use and is useful to categorize players or get guidance on your actions?
Thanks,
-IK
This is a great question and after a little thought I have a response. First of all let me say that while I don't regularly give poker lessons, I have in the past. If you want to do a few lessons for $50 an hour I'm sure I can help you to some extent. If you're interested you can e-mail me privately.
With that out of the way let me first of all say that there is no magic bullet. The top pros don't have secrets per se. To my knowledge there isn't any software that is so powerful that it will give you a massive edge. No one book has the answers.
The most important thing is experience. But I've seen the same mopes playing $3/$6 every day losing slowly at the Oaks club for the last 10 years. So clearly experience isn't everything.
Tactical knowledge that you get from books, articles, and discussion with other players is probably next on the list. But when you get to the higher levels most of the players have read a few books so that really just gets you to an even playing field with many of your opponents.
Emotional control is very important. One of my best friends is extremely smart. He is way smarter than I am and smarter than all of my friends (most of whom are Berkeley grads). He is extremely good at board games and has been playing poker seriously off and on for 20 years. He should be a great poker player. But he has no self control so he can't make any money playing poker. Losing makes him nuts so he starts playing too many hands, and moving up limits until he's lost so much that he has to quit. Last year he had 17 winning sessions in a row playing $5/$10 and won thousands of dollars. But then he had a session where he was losing badly so he jumped to $10/$20, and then to $30/$60 and lost $8,000 in a matter of hours. This same thing happened to him on 5 or 6 occasions over a year and a half where he'd win 80% of his sessions playing the smaller games, win $4,000 or $5,000 and then give it all back in one massive meltdown. He just couldn't stop himself.
I know it's stupid to chase your losses like that, but I still do the same thing sometimes! I've played in my share of marginal $50/$100 games and $100/$200 games hoping to get even. And we've all played hands in ways that aren't optimal because we're upset about losing. Self control is tough.
Fearlessness is very important too. You can't be afraid to lose. If conditions are right you have to be willing to risk more than you're really comfortable with.
On the other hand if conditions are poor you have to not play those stakes or games even if they are the most fun.
I could go on and on (I've actually gone on more than i planned to already) about what you need to be a great poker player. The point I wanted to get to is you have to put it all together.
Every time you play you have to take it seriously. Never screw around. Never play hands you shouldn't because you're bored or upset. Never give anything away or pass up an edge. Fight for every dollar, every time.
On top of that you need to specialize. Pick the game that is most profitable for your style of play and strengths and play that game almost all the time. Of course I do other things like play tournaments or mixed games, but 90% of my time is devoted to 6 handed limit cash games. When I was playing sit-n-goes for a living in 2004 and 2005 that's all I played. 9 handed, $114 SNGs, all day, every day. I played thousands and thousands of them. I've played millions of hands of 6 handed limit. So when someone who has read the books and played 50,000 hands sits down in my game thinking they are the shit, they have no chance against me.
On top of that, multitable tournaments are a real leak for most players. Even if you're playing with positive expectation that expectation is only realized when you finish in the top few spots. Most players can play well between hand one and the money or even well into the money. But when there are 20 players left in a 1,000 player tournament or they are at the final table, they lock up. Or they just don't have the experience or fearlessness is such a tough, stressful situation to seal the deal.
If you're playing against 1,000+ person fields it takes tens of thousands of tournaments for the luck factor to even out. Stick to tournaments that have smaller fields or play in special events (like the Sunday Million or WCOOP or whatever) that are loaded with satellite qualifiers.
Lastly, (this is very important) make sure you are getting rakeback (check out rakebacknation.com if you have no idea what I'm talking about) or making the most of other bonuses like FPPs, deposit and reload bonuses. I saw someone elses blog briefly who was playing SNGs for a living. He'd won $5,000 for the year in actual play and made $200,000 in bonuses and rakeback. More than half of my income is from FPPs and bonuses. It's a huge deal!
I'm not sure how helpful that was, but hopefully that at least made sense. I welcome any questions you might have or if anyone else wants to add their two cents feel free. Thanks for the comment!
What's Been Going On?
Nothing exciting! I went 0 for 6 in the FTOPS XIII and lost $2,214 which is no big deal. I have been a little fristrated that I haven't had a good result in a tournament in a long time. I've been playing a lot of $55-$215 multitables (a few almost every day) with fields that are usually 500-2,000 players (a few of the FTOPS tournaments were 5,000+) so of course I don't expect to be making final tables very often. But it still feels like it's been a long time since I've had a five figure or high four figure win and I haven't been cashing at the rate I'm used to either. I think it's just one of the natural lulls that comes when you've played thousands of tournaments.
Inspite of this constant drain on my bankroll, I have been winning steadily. Not counting FPPs and bonuses (which are significant) I'm ahead about $8,000 for the past 3 weeks. I played about 2,000 hands of no limit cash games last week and I've played a little 8-game mixed, but for the most part I've just been pounding away at the $10/$20-$50/$100 limit games.
WCOOP is right around the corner in September and after looking at the schedule I'm planning to play 31 of the 45 events with buy ins totaling $19,148. Unlike the FTOPS this is a once a year thing and a much bigger deal. It's the World Championship of Online Poker after all. More details on my schedule and other previews coming soon!
Inspite of this constant drain on my bankroll, I have been winning steadily. Not counting FPPs and bonuses (which are significant) I'm ahead about $8,000 for the past 3 weeks. I played about 2,000 hands of no limit cash games last week and I've played a little 8-game mixed, but for the most part I've just been pounding away at the $10/$20-$50/$100 limit games.
WCOOP is right around the corner in September and after looking at the schedule I'm planning to play 31 of the 45 events with buy ins totaling $19,148. Unlike the FTOPS this is a once a year thing and a much bigger deal. It's the World Championship of Online Poker after all. More details on my schedule and other previews coming soon!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
FTOPS Fizzle
I bricked in my last two FTOPS tournaments one of which was the $535 HORSE. I haven't lost the complete $3,000 that I had planned on using as my bankroll for the FTOSP, but my account is on zero and I think I'm just going to bail out at this point.
I know I have a positive expectation in these tournaments, but it just feels like I'm throwing money into the fire. I'll have a few other comments soon, but for now I think I'm just going to hold off and wait for the WCOOP.
I know I have a positive expectation in these tournaments, but it just feels like I'm throwing money into the fire. I'll have a few other comments soon, but for now I think I'm just going to hold off and wait for the WCOOP.
Monday, August 10, 2009
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.
The edge of the money is 135th which pays $340 and 1st is $57,640.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
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.
In the morning I have $216 half pot limit hold'em, half pot limit Omaha. It should be fun.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
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!
I haven't done shit in a tournament in a long time so (in the words of all great losers) I'm due!
Friday, August 07, 2009
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!
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.
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.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 03, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, July 20, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, July 06, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
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
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)
(This is Jen, I'm going to post the texts Dave sends me as I get them)
Saturday, July 04, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, July 03, 2009
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!
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!
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