FTOPS Event #15 ($535 HORSE) Recap

I liked the structure that full tilt set up for this tournament. Often times you start with so many chips and such small stakes that the first few rounds feel like a major waste of time. Of course when I'm putting up five hundred bucks for one tournament I want some play, but better to start with the stakes a little higher and make the blind increases a little more gradual. I think this tournament had the right balance.

We got 442 entrants which was 58 short of what full tilt needed to meet the $250,000 prize pool guarantee that they'd posted. In the end they had to add just over $13,000 to the prize pool creating a $30 per player overlay.

I got off to a good start. We began with 4,000 chips and my first big pot came up playing Stud. I stared the hand with three big clubs and there was heavy action on 3rd street. I bricked on 4th street, but caught another club on 5th. At this point my opponents went nuts going 3 bets one with only a pair of jacks and the other with I don't know what. I made my flush on 6th street and check raised the pair of jacks. Both players called. On the river I bet, one player folded and the other called me with bare jacks. That took me to 5,500.

I got half of a big Omaha pot a few minutes later when I made the nut low and was up to 6,400. But that was my peak.

I got totally blown up in razz. I had two hands back to back where I was ahead on 5th street (not way ahead, but ahead), got heavy action and caught two bricks.

A little while later in the Stud hi-lo I had a hand where I started with A63 and caught another ace and another 6. My opponent who made a low on 6th street also made a flush on the river and scooped me.

My final demise came in hold'em. I raised with QT of hearts and got 3 bet. The flop came down ace high with two hearts and I check called. The turn was a queen and I check raised. My opponent three bet me all in with AK, and I didn't hit. I finished 295th of 442.

My 2010 WSOP Schedule is Set!

I was worried that I might have to pass on this years WSOP because of cost. But happily I have been on a tear in the limit cash games. While I've had a few $1,500+ losing days this month, I had one day that was +$4,400, and a half dozen that were in the +$2,000 range.

What gives me the most confidence is I made a few significant changes to my tactics after taking a massive beating. I took a day to really look at some of the plays I'd been making and since I've made those changes I've been killing.

If I get my doors blown off in the SCOOP AND I back up a little in the cash games it might be a little tight playing all the WSOP events that I want to play. But I booked my hotel rooms so if I can make it work I'm going to.

Here is my plan! I'm getting to town on June 8th and staying at the Rio for 5 nights. Then I move over to Aria for 4 nights. I got 3 nights free at each hotel and the other 3 nights were $100 each. Not bad for RIO during the WSOP and the newest casino is Vegas!

Here is the schedule of tournaments!

June 9th - $2,000 limit hold'em
June 10th - $1,500 7-card stud
June 11th - $2,500 limit hold'em 6 handed
June 12th - $1,000 no limit hold'em
June 13th - Rest/Party with the wife!
June 14th - $2,500 No Limit Hold'em 6 handed
June 15th - Rest
June 16th - $1,500 HORSE

Total Cost: $11,000.

This is a great schedule for me and I'm pumped that these tournaments lined up the way they did. I like my chances playing limit hold'em and REALLY like my chances playing 6 handed limit. Also working to my advantage is the 6 max limit event is the only tournament that day. In year's past it's gone off at 5 pm on a day when there is a no limit tournament at noon which draws off a lot of the players. This year if you want to play something that day you're playing limit. Hopefully I can nail some of the NL players who think they can play limit.

The 7 card stud tournament is sure to be populated with old times, codgers and your grandpa. I played this event last year and was shocked by the level of play. If I can get a little help for the deck, I'll do great in this one.

Last year they had one $1,000 no limit tournament and it got 6,000 entrants! So this year they have one every weekend. They are sure to be populated with first time WSOP players and fish.

One of my WSOP cashes was $2,500 6 max no limit so I'm going to go for another one.

And of course, HORSE! Last year I finished 28th of 450 in the $3,000 HORSE against the toughest field you're ever seen. I always like my chances at HORSE.

Lastly there is a $10,000 limit event on the 15th. If I make a final table or have a solid five figure cash of some kind I'll probably play that baby as well.

I'll be looking to sell off about half my action. Of course I'l be in touch with my usual backers, but if you haven't backed me before and you want a piece, let me know.

More on the WSOP as the time gets closer. I'm getting fired up already!

Giddy Up!

$535 HORSE tonight at 6 pm PT! I'm taking this one to the house! The HORSE house! To the Barn! Look for updates on twitter.

Sunday Tournament Recap

On Sunday I played 4 tournaments and made the money in 3 of them. The first was $129 Knockout FTOPS, and I went broke right away.

The second was a $55 tournament on pokerstars that started with over 8,000 players and a first place prize of $44,000! I finished about 500th.

The third tournament was a special tournament on pokerstars called the "turbo takedown." This tournament goes off once a month, the buy in is 3,000 FPPs and it has a prize pool of $1,000,000 regardless of the number of entrants. In this case we had 18,000 entrants. I went on a monster tear like I can't ever remember having. It started with beating AA with AK when the flop came with TWO kings. After that I took out 4 players in about 10 minutes! When we were down to 6,000 or so players I was in first place with a stack that was 7 times average! I fizzeled a little down the stretch, but finished around 700th which paid $170.

Lastly there was the pokerstars Sunday Million. I want to keep this post short so let's just say that I finished 783rd out of 8776 and got paid $421.

I planned to play the $322 NLH FTOPS event #9, but after 5 or 6 hours of steady play I didn't think I had it in me to stay focused long enough to go deep.

The knockout and Sunday Million were part of my FTOPS/SCOOP package. My backers will be happy to hear that I'm ahead $1,220 after four tournaments.

My Near Future Schedule (With Times!)

Since I did so well in Event #1 I'm adding a few more FTOPS tournaments to the schedule. My original plan was to play 3 FTOPS tournaments as a warm up for the SCOOP. But instead of 3 it looks like it's going to be more like 5 or 6.

Today I'm going to play three tournaments:
1) $129 NL hold'em Knock out which is event #7. For every player I bust I get $20. Start Time - 11 PT.
2) $322 No Limit Hold'em which is Event #9. Start Time - 3 PT.
3) $215 Pokerstars Sunday Milion. Start Time - 1:30 (Backers you're in for this one too. I'm adding it to the FTOPS/SCOOP package).

I'll probably register late for all of these and skip the first few mind numbing levels.

Here are other events and the percentage that I'll be playing them:
1) $535 HORSE at 6 PT on Tuesday (99%)
2)$216 7-game mixed games at 11 PT on Wednesday (99%)
3)$216 NL hold'em "cashout" at 3 PT on Wednesday (50%)
4)$216 NL hold'em 6-max at 11 PT on Friday ((35%)
5)$256 NL knockout 6 max at 11 PT on Sunday May 2nd (50%)
6 $640 NL hold'em "Main Event" on Sunday May 2nd (30%)

The SCOOP starts May 2nd. More on my precice SCOOP schedule later.

FTOPS Event #6 ($216 Rush Poker) Recap

This tournament was a ton of fun. Due to the format where you can look at a hand, fold it, and instantly get a new one I played 122 hands in about 23 minutes. Compare that to the 500 hands in 8 hours I played the day before in event #1 and I was getting 318 hands per hour playing rush, vs 63 an hour with the standard format.

There were roughly 1,900 entrants and although I only lasted 23 minutes I beat 1,000 of them. In the end I had my starting stack of 2,000 up to 2,500 with blinds in the range of 100/200. The button made a standard raise, I moved all in with 99 from the small blind, he called me with JJ and I didn't hit.

Rush Poker

As I mentioned in my last post FTOPS event #6 is Rush Poker. This is new thing so let me explain it to those of you who don't know about it.

I've never played a rush poker tournament, but I have played a little bit of the cash games. The way it works is you join a large pool of players (something like 100-500) all playing the same game and stakes. When you start you get plopped down at a table and dealt a hand. If you choose to "quick fold" you instantly get sent to a new table and get dealt a new hand. To the other players at the first table you appear to still be there waiting to act. If you get crappy cards you can just fold, fold, fold and instantly get more hands at new tables.

Of course you're facing a different lineup of players each hand so there isn't much playing the player going on unless you get to know the regulars.

In this FTOPS tournament there will probably be a couple thousand players to start and it's a turbo tournament. That means 2,000 chips to start and 3 minute levels. While the blinds start at 15/30, 30 minutes into the tournament they'll be at 150/300. The whole tournament will be over in a couple hours.

I'm definitely going to play and will tweet updates when I can. I should be interesing if nothing else.

FTOPS Event #5 and #6

Event #5 is NLH $109 with rebuys, and event #6 is $216 "Rush" poker turbo. The first one is at 1 PT and the second is at 3 PT. Right now I'm not sure if I'm going to play neither, one or both, but I wanted to give my backers and my fan(s) a heads up.

FTOPS XVI Event #1 ($216 NLH) Recap

I got the schedule a little mixed up and wasn't expecting to start the FTOPS for another day, but when I woke up I decided to see what was going on. When I saw that event #1 was a standard $216 NLH tournament I decided to log on and give it a shot.

We started with 3,673 players with 5,000 chips each. I won a few pots early and had 8K or 9K when the following hand came up. The blinds were something like 40/80 and my opponent raised to 250 from early position. I was on the button with TT and I made it 900 to go.

The raiser called and the flop came down Q 9 5 with two spades. He checked and I bet 900 which was about half the pot and instantly my opponent went all in for 3,500. I had about 7K left in my stack so I wouldn't be out altogether if I called and lost, but the most likely hand for him to have there is a queen. In the end I made what looking back was a terrible call, but it turned out my opponent had AK of spades, missed, and I was up to 13K chips.

The next big hand came up a good while later, although my stack was still around 13K. The blinds were up to 250/500 and I made it 1,500 to go from the button with AJ off. The big blind who had 25K chips instantly pushed all in. I knew this was total bullshit and snapped called. He had QT off, I flopped an ace, and was up to 29K.

At that point there were 950 players left, 540 spots paid, and the average stack was around 20K.

I worked my way up to 45K with pure aggression and that's how much I had when we made the money. 540th paid $300.

After taking it up to 53K, I'd fallen back to 30K when the next big hand came up. The blinds were 1K/2K and the under the gun player limped in which was very suspicious. I figured it was likely AA. I had Q9 in the small blind and fired in another 1,000 hoping to hit the flop big and double up.

I didn't really hit the flop big, but I got some of it. The flop was 6 7 8 giving me an open ended straight draw. I checked, the big blind checked and the limper bet 3,000. At this point I talked myself out of my original read. "It doesn't have to be aces" I thought somewhat foolishly. Restraint has never been one of my strengths and I decided to be bold and move all in. My opponent didn't have pocket aces...he had pocked kings! ACK! Happily I hit a 5 on the turn making my straight and taking my stack to 62K.

I drifted up and down a little and the caught a break busting a player who had 55 when I had 88. That took me to 77K.

That's when I smashed face first into AA with JJ. I was down to about 5K when the big blind was 4K and the ante was 500 a hand. I was in last place about as broke as you could be without actually being on empty. I folded three hands and had 3,100 left when I got dealt A5. I got it all in and won. And then got the next hand all in and won. All of a sudden I was back to 30K with some hope.

Two hands later someone short moved all in with 56s and I called with A9. They missed and I was up to 67K! I'd increased my stack by 20 times in 4 hands!

One round later I got AK suited and was able to reraise all in vs AQ. Now I had 117K. What a comeback! But that wasn't the end.

I got ground down to 70K when I got dealt JTs in the big blind. It got folded around to the small blind who had 250K. He moved all in, but I thought he might move all in with just about anything here given that the blinds were 5K/10K with a 1K ante (there was 25K in the pot already) and I had the perfect size stack to attack. So I called. He showed me A3 which was more than I expected. I bricked the flop and the turn, but hit a ten on the river putting my back to 140K.

Then I got REALLY lucky. I had a little over 100K and a player made it 25K or so to go from late position. I had A8 suited and decided to shove. He called me with A9. Whoops!

The flop came down 6 7 9 giving him a pair and me a straight draw. Sadly the turn was an 8 taking me from 8 outs to win to 8 outs to chop and 2 outs to win. But the river was another 8! HA! I was up to 225K.

But this is where the story ends. I wish I could say the insanity that took me from 3,100 to 225,000 kept up. Instead I got ground down and the blinds went up and I ended up moving in from the button with 66 and got called by the big blind's AA.

I finished 38th out of 3,673 which paid $1,575. First place was $134,000 and I wasn't that far away from the final table, but this result was not bad for a tournament I almost didn't play. If I'd gone broke when I had 3,100 chips I would have gotten paid $525.

It's Go Time!

FTOPS starts today. $216 NLH. I'll be posting updates via twitter which will show up on the right ride of the blog. Full details will come later.

SCOOP 2010!

The Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) starts May 2nd. It seems like much more than a year ago that I was cashing for $37,500 after finishing 4th in a $1,000 HORSE tournament with 444 entrants. Ahhhh the good old days.

The cool thing about the SCOOP is while there are 38 events there are actually three times that many tournaments since each event comes with a low, medium and high stakes variant. For example event #1 which stars at 13:00 ET and is 6 max NLH has a $22 buy in tournament, a $215 buy in tournament and a $2,100 buy in tournament all starting at the same time. If you want to check it out here is the full schedule.

Last year there were 22 or 23 events and I think I played all of the low stakes, and maybe 15 of the medium stakes, and 4 of the high stakes tournaments. This year since there are many more tournaments, I'm not coming in with the $15,000 SCOOP bankroll, and I probably won't have a mid five figure cash I don't expect to hit everything so hard.

Instead I'm going to put about $5,000 into play and my goal is to get that up to about $10,000 which will be enough to play the 5 or 6 WSOP events that I'd like to hit this summer.

After a quick glance at the schedule I see 17 low stakes tournaments that I plan to play (with buy ins totalling $685) and 14 mid stakes tournaments (with buy ins totalling $3,429). Of course if I do well I'll add in more of the medium stakes events. And if I do really well I'll play the $2,100 HORSE, the $3,150 8-game mixed event, and maybe the $5,200 6-max limit event.

The latest iteration of the FTOPS is going off just before the SCOOP. While I'm not going to play many of those tournaments I am going to play the $216 6-max limit, $535 HORSE and $216 7-game mixed games tournaments.

I feel like I'm due for a big win. I'll keep you posted.

Not Broke, Not Dead

One of my regular comment posters asked yesterday if I was "broke, dead or both." I'm happy to say that I'm still breathing and playing poker every day.

The main reason for the lack of posts in the last month in a half is I've been trying to play as much as I can and at the end of the day more time in front of the computer to write a post hasn't fit into my time budget. I guess I didn't realize it had been a month and a half since my last post either.

I wish I could say that things have been going well, but they haven't. Actually it's more of a good news bad news situation. The bad news is I was ahead about $8,000 for the year in the middle of march (a VERY week number for 2+ months for me) and then I lost $7,000 over 5 days. Clearly that's bad news.

The good news is I've made some significant changes to my standard tactics and I think I'm back on track.

I knew I needed to change something, so I finally spent the time to download Pokertracker (the easy part) and get it working (the hard part). Pokertracker is a piece of software that records every hand you play and allows you to look at how much you've won and lost with different hands in different situations. If you want to know how many dollars per hand you won with A6 off suit in the cutoff (or any other hand in any other position) it will tell you.

Happily the websites save hand histories to your hard drive if you have a certain setting enabled. They don't save forever (there's another setting for how long they save), but when I got Pokertracker running it found about 125,000 hands from pokerstars and 20,000 hands from Absolute poker. That gave me a solid group of hands to look at and a few things stood out.

There were a few spots where I noticed that I was making more money with a lesser hand in the same situation. For example I'd be winning more with A8 off than with A8 suited or more with 88 than 99. Of course some of that could be sample size aberration, but more likely is I was misplaying those hands stronger. Specifically I know I was three betting (to thin) with A8s in spots where I'd just fold A8 off. Similarly with 88 I was treating it more like a small pair and playing 99 like a big pair (ie capping it vs two opponents or three betting it out of the big blind vs an early position raise).

In fact I was getting into the habit of calling or three betting KTs, KJs, JTs, QJs, and QTs against a solid player's raise. The games I play in are very aggressive and players have a wide range of starting hands that they are capable of raising, but I was taking it too far. These hands were costing me a fortune and since I've been MUCH more apt to just dump them I've felt much more in control and my results have been great.

Another thing I started doing is looking up all of my regular opponents on www.pokertableratings.com. While the database for this site is certainly not comprehensive (they've been tracking hands for about 2 years and I don't think they're catching them all), and I'm sure it's not 100% accurate it will give you an idea if the player you're up against is a winner, a loser or a break even player and since you can see how many hands they've tracked you can find out if you're up against a rookie or a regular. The best news about it is it's free.

I've gotten into the habit of looking up everyone who I've seen more than once and then making a note with their vital stats so I don't have to look them up again. In fact pokertableratings has a "PTR" score for every player. It's a 1 to 100 number that would be easy to put in a note. It doesn't seem that precise to me. Most people seem to fall in the 30's or 40's and they have Tom "Durrrr" Dwan as an 83 even though he's probably the best online cash game player in the world and is up $7,000,000 over 250,000 hands. But still use full.

The last bit of good news is that I have been working really hard in march so I should be getting a nice fat load of about $4,000 in rakeback on the 15th of April.

Looking a little farther into the future the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) comes back on May 2nd. More on that in a post coming soon.

Pounding Mr. Terrible

Yesterday I ran into a fellow who was off the charts bad. The thing about players like that is they usually buy in short and when the go broke they give up. This guy bought in for $200, but reloaded 4 or 5 times before finally bailing out (He went through $1,000+ in less than half an hour playing limit $10/$20).

Anyone who plays poker can tell you about a time they played someone really terrible and thought with dollar signs in their eyes, "If I can get any kind of cards at all I'm going to kill this person!" Sometimes it's really frustrating playing against a terrible player. If you're against some joker who is going to call you down every time no matter what, the only way to beat them is to make the best hand. Of course if you make a few hands you'll destroy them, but if they get lucky a few times you'll want to pull your hair out.

Happily I got a fabulous run of cards against Mr. Terrible. I kicked his ass left and right and in one span of 8 hands I flopped two sets, got dealt AA, and made a flush. One of the sets was in a 4 way capped pot preflop as were the pocket aces and I won all of those pots at showdown with heavy action from Mr. terrible.

The hand with the flush was amazing. Look at how the hand played out.


Stage #1911311267: Holdem Normal $10/$20 - 2010-02-17 13:59:04.009 (ET) [ 2010-02-17 13:59:04 ]
Table: BELUGA Dr (Real Money) Seat #5 is the dealer
Seat 5 - KAON STRANGE ($205.50 in chips)
Seat 1 - BUCKEYE_BOB ($369 in chips)
Seat 2 - ACESSEDAI ($525.50 in chips)
Seat 3 - LIUHAMPTON ($506 in chips)
Seat 4 - BONSAIHUGGER ($442 in chips)
BUCKEYE_BOB - Posts small blind $5
ACESSEDAI - Posts big blind $10
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to ACESSEDAI [Ks 7s]
LIUHAMPTON - Folds
BONSAIHUGGER - Folds
KAON STRANGE - Raises $20 to $20
BUCKEYE_BOB - Folds
ACESSEDAI - Calls $10
*** FLOP *** [5s 6d 6s]
ACESSEDAI - Checks
KAON STRANGE - Bets $10
ACESSEDAI - Raises $20 to $20
KAON STRANGE - Raises $20 to $30
ACESSEDAI - Calls $10
*** TURN *** [5s 6d 6s] [9s]
ACESSEDAI - Checks
KAON STRANGE - Bets $20
ACESSEDAI - Raises $40 to $40
KAON STRANGE - Calls $20
*** RIVER *** [5s 6d 6s 9s] [10c]
ACESSEDAI - Bets $20
KAON STRANGE - Calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESSEDAI - Shows [Ks 7s] (Flush, king high)
KAON STRANGE - Mucks
ACESSEDAI Collects $222 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot($225) | Rake ($3)
Board [5s 6d 6s 9s 10c]
Seat 1: BUCKEYE_BOB (small blind) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 2: ACESSEDAI (big blind) collected Total ($222) HI:($222) with Flush, king high [Ks 7s - P:Ks,B:9s,P:7s,B:6s,B:5s]
Seat 3: LIUHAMPTON Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 4: BONSAIHUGGER Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 5: KAON STRANGE (dealer) HI: [Mucked] [4h 3d]


Do you see the call on the end! He called me with 4 high! If I have 23, 24, or 34 we split the pot. If I have any of the other 166 combinations of two cards I win. He just gave me $20 to see my cards. Amazing.

I went on to book a $1,300 win yesterday, put another $400 on it today and brought my streak of winning days to 5 in a row. Everything seems to be back on track.

Avoiding Total Doom!

I took another big step away from poker doom today winning $800 over the course of 2,000 hands of moderate stakes limit hold'em. I matched wits with certified geniuses that go by the names: Clowntastic, King_of_Farts, and Boner_me. Somehow I managed to come out on top.

In other good news I'll be picking up all the rakeback I earned last month on AP in one big load tomorrow. It's in the $1,500 range and I'll also be picking up about $500 in rakeback on Cake. Put that together with two modest but significant winning days and all of a sudden I feel like I have enough money to play again. Don't get me wrong, I'm still playing short money, but I feel confident that if I put in enough hours I'll be able to turn this thing all the way around in no time.

Of course there are a few awesome things on the horizon that are going to put a hurting on my productivity. I'm turning 30 on Tuesday so I'm not going to be playing at all that day. Then on Thursday my wife and I are going to eat at the Ritz dining room in San Francisco (think jacket required, 9 course chefs tasting menu with wine pairing) and are going to spend the night at a hotel in the city. Then later this month 16 of us are headed to a 7 bedroom 5,000 square foot cabin in Lake Tahoe for 4 days.

Hopefully tomorrow I can book another win and go into my birthday with a positive feeling.

The Streak is Over!

After losing 10 days in a row, I won $500 today. It feels more like $5,000. The only (and I mean the only) positive of getting my ass kicked for so long is winning is greatly appreciated. It's nice to get pumped about winning pots that are fairly standard.

Hopefully I can keep this new winning streak alive tomorrow!

My Worst Run Ever?

I am in the midst of a staggering, mind numbingly awful run. My last winning day was February 1st which was $800 and came the day after a $3,000 loss. Since then I've played every day but Superbowl Sunday and lost every single day. Some big losses, some small, but any way you look at it, it's 10 losing days in a row.

It's been over 20 tournaments since the last time I made the money let alone a significant cash.

I know I've had worse runs in terms of dollars, but they were all following major booms where I was flush and playing big stakes. This time I've lost 85% of my bankroll.

In December I had a run of 11 winning days in a row and 6 $1,000 plus days in a row. I can't think of what I'm doing differently. I have a hard time thinking that all of the same players have just figured me out and have gone from total suckers to blowing my doors off.

It's making me crazy! Every day I sit down and think that the bad beats have to stop at some point. Eventually I'll get a fair run of cards. But day after day I keep losing and losing. It sucks!

UBOC Update!

I am getting killed in the fucking UBOC! Since my last post I came up short in $130 NLH, $215 NLH, $109 6 handed limit (it makes me sick that I can't ever seem to do anything in these 6-max limit tournaments!), and $320 PLH/PLO/PLO8 mixed. I'm 0 for 6! Fuck!

Tomorrow I have $215 HORSE which might be my last event if I put up another brick.

WBCOOP

I have registered to play in the WBCOOP PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! You too can Play Poker Online at PokerStars.com and take part in the WBCOOP which is open to all Bloggers by registering on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 081711

UBOC Events #1 and #2 Recap

Event #1 really came down to one hand two and half hours in where I had no chance to get off it and no chance to win. The blinds were 100/200, I had my starting stack of 3,000 up to about 3,800 and I got dealt J8 in the big blind. There were two limpers, the small blind called and we took the flop 4 way. The flop came down Q 9 5 and it got checked around. The turn was a ten which looked like a total bingo card making me a straight. The small blind bet out 625 into the 800 chip pot and I took a moment to think.

I had about 3,600 behind and the small blind had about 3,000 including his bet. I thought I was likely to get called if I moved all in, but if he was on a bluff I didn't want to blow him off it. He might also lay down a hand with a ten in it to a big turn raise, but might check call the river. Of course I also wanted to give my other opponents the chance to make a mistake by raising or calling thin.

In the end I just called and the river came down an 8. This was not a great card for me since I'd now be splitting against someone else with a J in their hand and more likely it would kill my action against any hand that I could beat.

When my opponent moved all in I figured he had a jack as well. I was right, but I was sorry to see he had KJ and hand made a bigger straight. A few hands later I got my last 500 in the pot with KT vs 66 and missed.

The finish in event #2 was much more dissapointing. 2+ hours into play I had 1,400 of my 3,000 starting stack left and had one foot out the door. Then I caught a few breaks. Here is a hand I played in the Razz (7-card stud where the lowest hand wins) section of the tournament.

Stage #2130831249 Tourney ID 4960102 8 Game Mix + Multi Normal Tournament Normal 250/500 - 2010-01-20 22:36:53.026 (ET) [ 2010-01-20 22:36:53 ]
Game Type: Normal Razz
Table: 44 (Real Money)
Seat 1 - ACESSEDAI (2,427 in chips)
Seat 2 - MARIA NUCCIA (3,814 in chips)
Seat 3 - INYOUREYE111 (4,972 in chips)
Seat 4 - WHATZPROFIT (4,313 in chips)
Seat 5 - YELLOSUB86 (2,427 in chips)
Seat 6 - GEEAH (6,447 in chips)
Seat 7 - BRUCE CAMINO (3,431 in chips)
Seat 8 - RYANBLUF (8,052 in chips)
ACESSEDAI - Ante 40
MARIA NUCCIA - Ante 40
INYOUREYE111 - Ante 40
WHATZPROFIT - Ante 40
YELLOSUB86 - Ante 40
GEEAH - Ante 40
BRUCE CAMINO - Ante 40
RYANBLUF - Ante 40
*** 3rd STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [3d 6d 7h]
MARIA NUCCIA - Pocket [H H 2c]
INYOUREYE111 - Pocket [H H 8s]
WHATZPROFIT - Pocket [H H Ah]
YELLOSUB86 - Pocket [H H 6h]
GEEAH - Pocket [H H 9h]
BRUCE CAMINO - Pocket [H H 8d]
RYANBLUF - Pocket [H H 4c]
GEEAH - Bring-In 75
BRUCE CAMINO - Folds
RYANBLUF - Raises 250 to 250
ACESSEDAI - Raises 500 to 500
MARIA NUCCIA - Folds (Preselection)
INYOUREYE111 - Folds
WHATZPROFIT - Raises 750 to 750
YELLOSUB86 - Folds
GEEAH - Folds (Preselection)
RYANBLUF - Folds
ACESSEDAI - Calls 250
*** 4TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [3d 6d 7h 8c]
WHATZPROFIT - Pocket [H H Ah 4d]
WHATZPROFIT - Bets 250
ACESSEDAI - Calls 250
*** 5TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [3d 6d 7h 8c Kh]
WHATZPROFIT - Pocket [H H Ah 4d Kc]
WHATZPROFIT - Bets 500
ACESSEDAI - Calls 500
*** 6TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [3d 6d 7h 8c Kh 5h]
WHATZPROFIT - Pocket [H H Ah 4d Kc Jh]
ACESSEDAI - Bets 500
WHATZPROFIT - Calls 500
*** RIVER ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [3d 6d 7h 8c Kh 5h 5d]
WHATZPROFIT - Pocket [H H Ah 4d Kc Jh H]
ACESSEDAI - All-In(Raise) 387 to 387
WHATZPROFIT - Calls 387
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESSEDAI - Shows [3d 6d 7h 8c Kh 5h 5d] (8,7,6,5,3)
WHATZPROFIT - Shows [Ad 5s Ah 4d Kc Jh 3s] (J,5,4,3,A)
ACESSEDAI Collects 5,419 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(5,419)
Seat 1: ACESSEDAI won Total (5,419) All-In with 8,7,6,5,3 [3d 6d 7h 8c Kh 5h 5d - P:3d,B:5d,P:6d,B:7h,B:8c]
Seat 2: MARIA NUCCIA Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 3: INYOUREYE111 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 4: WHATZPROFIT lost with J,5,4,3,A [Ad 5s Ah 4d Kc Jh 3s - P:Ad,B:3s,B:4d,P:5s,B:Jh]
Seat 5: YELLOSUB86 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 6: GEEAH Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 7: BRUCE CAMINO Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 8: RYANBLUF Folded on the 3rd STREET

Clearly my opponent thought we were playing normal stud. Either that or he is a total buffoon...or both.

Here is the very next hand still playing Razz:

Stage #2130833604 Tourney ID 4960102 8 Game Mix + Multi Normal Tournament Normal 250/500 - 2010-01-20 22:37:50.025 (ET) [ 2010-01-20 22:37:50 ]
Game Type: Normal Razz
Table: 44 (Real Money)
Seat 1 - ACESSEDAI (5,419 in chips)
Seat 2 - MARIA NUCCIA (3,774 in chips)
Seat 3 - INYOUREYE111 (4,932 in chips)
Seat 4 - WHATZPROFIT (1,886 in chips)
Seat 5 - YELLOSUB86 (2,387 in chips)
Seat 6 - GEEAH (6,332 in chips)
Seat 7 - BRUCE CAMINO (3,391 in chips)
Seat 8 - RYANBLUF (7,762 in chips)
ACESSEDAI - Ante 40
MARIA NUCCIA - Ante 40
INYOUREYE111 - Ante 40
WHATZPROFIT - Ante 40
YELLOSUB86 - Ante 40
GEEAH - Ante 40
BRUCE CAMINO - Ante 40
RYANBLUF - Ante 40
*** 3rd STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [7s Ah Kh]
MARIA NUCCIA - Pocket [H H Ad]
INYOUREYE111 - Pocket [H H Jh]
WHATZPROFIT - Pocket [H H 9d]
YELLOSUB86 - Pocket [H H 8h]
GEEAH - Pocket [H H 9s]
BRUCE CAMINO - Pocket [H H 6d]
RYANBLUF - Pocket [H H Ac]
ACESSEDAI - Bring-In 75
MARIA NUCCIA - Folds
INYOUREYE111 - Folds
WHATZPROFIT - Folds (Preselection)
YELLOSUB86 - Folds
GEEAH - Folds (Preselection)
BRUCE CAMINO - Folds (Preselection)
RYANBLUF - Raises 250 to 250
ACESSEDAI - Calls 175
*** 4TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [7s Ah Kh 2h]
RYANBLUF - Pocket [H H Ac 7c]
RYANBLUF - Bets 250
ACESSEDAI - Calls 250
*** 5TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [7s Ah Kh 2h 2s]
RYANBLUF - Pocket [H H Ac 7c As]
RYANBLUF - Bets 500
ACESSEDAI - Calls 500
*** 6TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [7s Ah Kh 2h 2s 5c]
RYANBLUF - Pocket [H H Ac 7c As 10s]
RYANBLUF - Bets 500
ACESSEDAI - Calls 500
*** RIVER ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [7s Ah Kh 2h 2s 5c Jd]
RYANBLUF - Pocket [H H Ac 7c As 10s H]
RYANBLUF - Bets 500
ACESSEDAI - Calls 500
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RYANBLUF - Shows [5d 10d Ac 7c As 10s 10c] (A,A,10,7,5)
ACESSEDAI - Shows [7s Ah Kh 2h 2s 5c Jd] (J,7,5,2,A)
ACESSEDAI Collects 4,320 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(4,320)
Seat 1: ACESSEDAI won Total (4,320) with J,7,5,2,A [7s Ah Kh 2h 2s 5c Jd - P:Ah,B:2h,B:5c,P:7s,B:Jd]
Seat 2: MARIA NUCCIA Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 3: INYOUREYE111 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 4: WHATZPROFIT Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 5: YELLOSUB86 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 6: GEEAH Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 7: BRUCE CAMINO Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 8: RYANBLUF lost with A,A,10,7,5 [5d 10d Ac 7c As 10s 10c - P:5d,B:7c,B:10c,B:Ac,B:As]


On this one my opponent made a full house! HA! I can't say I felt sure he was bluffing most of the way, but I thought it was worth it to look him up.

During this two hand stretch tripled my chips and was in good shape. A few hands later I made a wheel (the best possible razz hand) against A 2 3 5 6 which is the thrid best possible hand. That took me over 11K.

After a little up and down I gave back a ton of chips when I started with split aces against rolled up 9's in the normal 7 card stud. In fact I plummeted all the way back to 1,500 chips.

But then I made another comback. I was up to 9K or so when this hand came up playing Stud hi-lo (note that I was playing against Ultimate bet (or AP) pro and card player colunmist Michael Binger).

Stage #5039 Tourney ID 4960102 8 Game Mix + Multi Normal Tournament Normal 800/1,600 - 2010-01-21 00:02:51.005 (ET) [ 2010-01-21 00:02:51 ]
Game Type: Normal 7 Card Stud H/L
Table: 44 (Real Money)
Seat 1 - ACESSEDAI (8,936 in chips)
Seat 2 - VISIONEER (7,676 in chips)
Seat 3 - STANACS (3,760 in chips)
Seat 4 - MARWAN23 (9,845 in chips)
Seat 5 - YELLOSUB86 (5,026 in chips)
Seat 6 - APSTER (9,726 in chips)
Seat 7 - BRUCE CAMINO (3,127 in chips)
Seat 8 - MICHAELBINGER (22,983 in chips)
ACESSEDAI - Ante 150
VISIONEER - Ante 150
STANACS - Ante 150
MARWAN23 - Ante 150
YELLOSUB86 - Ante 150
APSTER - Ante 150
BRUCE CAMINO - Ante 150
MICHAELBINGER - Ante 150
*** 3rd STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [2d 4d 4h]
VISIONEER - Pocket [H H 8d]
STANACS - Pocket [H H Qh]
MARWAN23 - Pocket [H H 10h]
YELLOSUB86 - Pocket [H H 3h]
APSTER - Pocket [H H 6c]
BRUCE CAMINO - Pocket [H H 9c]
MICHAELBINGER - Pocket [H H 3d]
MICHAELBINGER - Bring-In 250
ACESSEDAI - Raises 800 to 800
VISIONEER - Folds
STANACS - Folds (Preselection)
MARWAN23 - Folds (Preselection)
YELLOSUB86 - Folds
APSTER - Folds
BRUCE CAMINO - Folds (Preselection)
MICHAELBINGER - Calls 550
*** 4TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [2d 4d 4h 5s]
MICHAELBINGER - Pocket [H H 3d 2s]
ACESSEDAI - Bets 800
MICHAELBINGER - Raises 1,600 to 1,600
ACESSEDAI - Calls 800
*** 5TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [2d 4d 4h 5s Ad]
MICHAELBINGER - Pocket [H H 3d 2s 10c]
ACESSEDAI - Bets 1,600
MICHAELBINGER - Calls 1,600
*** 6TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [2d 4d 4h 5s Ad 9s]
MICHAELBINGER - Pocket [H H 3d 2s 10c Ac]
MICHAELBINGER - Bets 1,600
ACESSEDAI - Calls 1,600
*** RIVER ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [2d 4d 4h 5s Ad 9s 3s]
MICHAELBINGER - Pocket [H H 3d 2s 10c Ac H]
MICHAELBINGER - Bets 1,600
ACESSEDAI - All-In(Raise) 3,186 to 3,186
MICHAELBINGER - Calls 1,586
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESSEDAI - Shows [2d 4d 4h 5s Ad 9s 3s] (Straight, ace to five)
MICHAELBINGER - Mucks
ACESSEDAI Collects 18,772 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(18,772)
Seat 1: ACESSEDAI won Total (18,772) All-In HI:(9,386) with Straight, ace to five [2d 4d 4h 5s Ad 9s 3s - B:5s,B:4h,B:3s,P:2d,B:Ad] LO:(9,386) [B:Ad,P:2d,B:3s,P:4d,B:5s]
Seat 2: VISIONEER Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 3: STANACS Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 4: MARWAN23 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 5: YELLOSUB86 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 6: APSTER Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 7: BRUCE CAMINO Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 8: MICHAELBINGER HI: [Mucked] [6s 5h 3d 2s 10c Ac 6d]

What a sweet 3 on the river to make me the wheel!

After that hand I really liked my chances of making the money. We were down to 60 or so players, I was well over average and 40 spots paid.

Binger got a little revenge playing hold'em when he went all in for 5,000 with K7 vs my AK and spiked a 7. Then I lost another 5K against another short stack with A9 vs 77.

You'd think this was a razz tournament with all the razz hands I'm sharing, but while the razz did me well early it did me in in the end. Here was my final hand.

Stage #98358 Tourney ID 4960102 8 Game Mix + Multi Normal Tournament Normal 1,600/3,200 - 2010-01-21 00:50:24.013 (ET) [ 2010-01-21 00:50:24 ]
Game Type: Normal Razz
Table: 44 (Real Money)
Seat 1 - ACESSEDAI (12,506 in chips)
Seat 2 - VISIONEER (26,802 in chips)
Seat 3 - TMAY420 (28,961 in chips)
Seat 4 - MARWAN23 (27,162 in chips)
Seat 5 - PSVALENT (11,818 in chips)
Seat 6 - WORTHLESNUTS (31,875 in chips)
Seat 7 - ANALYSER2 (9,740 in chips)
ACESSEDAI - Ante 250
VISIONEER - Ante 250
TMAY420 - Ante 250
MARWAN23 - Ante 250
PSVALENT - Ante 250
WORTHLESNUTS - Ante 250
ANALYSER2 - Ante 250
*** 3rd STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [As 6h 5s]
VISIONEER - Pocket [H H 3c]
TMAY420 - Pocket [H H 4s]
MARWAN23 - Pocket [H H 8s]
PSVALENT - Pocket [H H 7h]
WORTHLESNUTS - Pocket [H H Jd]
ANALYSER2 - Pocket [H H Ad]
WORTHLESNUTS - Bring-In 500
ANALYSER2 - Folds
ACESSEDAI - Raises 1,600 to 1,600
VISIONEER - Folds
TMAY420 - Raises 3,200 to 3,200
MARWAN23 - Folds (Preselection)
PSVALENT - Folds (Preselection)
WORTHLESNUTS - Folds (Preselection)
ACESSEDAI - Calls 1,600
*** 4TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [As 6h 5s 7c]
TMAY420 - Pocket [H H 4s 5d]
TMAY420 - Bets 1,600
ACESSEDAI - Calls 1,600
*** 5TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [As 6h 5s 7c 10s]
TMAY420 - Pocket [H H 4s 5d Qh]
ACESSEDAI - Bets 3,200
TMAY420 - Raises 6,400 to 6,400
ACESSEDAI - All-In(Raise) 4,256 to 7,456
TMAY420 - Calls 1,056
*** 6TH STREET ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [As 6h 5s 7c 10s Kc]
TMAY420 - Pocket [Ah 2s 4s 5d Qh 3d]
*** RIVER ***
ACESSEDAI - Pocket [As 6h 5s 7c 10s Kc Ks]
TMAY420 - Pocket [Ah 2s 4s 5d Qh 3d 2c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESSEDAI - Shows [As 6h 5s 7c 10s Kc Ks] (10,7,6,5,A)
TMAY420 - Shows [Ah 2s 4s 5d Qh 3d 2c] (5,4,3,2,A)
TMAY420 Collects 26,762 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(26,762)
Seat 1: ACESSEDAI lost with 10,7,6,5,A [As 6h 5s 7c 10s Kc Ks - P:As,B:5s,P:6h,B:7c,B:10s]
Seat 2: VISIONEER Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 3: TMAY420 won Total (26,762) with 5,4,3,2,A [Ah 2s 4s 5d Qh 3d 2c - P:Ah,B:2c,B:3d,B:4s,B:5d]
Seat 4: MARWAN23 Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 5: PSVALENT Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 6: WORTHLESNUTS Folded on the 3rd STREET
Seat 7: ANALYSER2 Folded on the 3rd STREET


In the end I finished 48th, just 8 spots shy of the money. It felt like a major waste of 5 hours.

UBOC Events #1 and #2 Underway!

Event #1 of the Ultimate Bet Online Championship is $320 "sniper" no limit hold'em. In this variant for every player that you bust you get $30 ($20 from each player goes to the house and $270 goes to the prize pool). We started with 1,103 players, the tournament pays 108 spots and first place is $65,488.

Event #2 is $162 8-game mixed. On pokerstars 8-game is a mix of the five HORSE games, plus triple draw, no limit hold'em and pot limit Omaha, but in this tournament there is no triple draw and instead there is pot limit Omaha hi lo. Also they've switched the no limit hold'em to pot limit hold'em.

I haven't played a ton of pot limit hold'em, but I have two WSOP cashes in that style so I'm not super pissed about the switch. On the other hand I'd much rather play triple draw than PLO8 even though I've made the money in 100% of the PLO8 tournaments I've played (I'm 1 for 1).

We started event #2 with 386 players and first place is $15,633.

An hour and a half into both, not much has happened. I'll try to put up a recap later, but might not get to it for a while since I'm off to wine country tomorrow and need to do some planning.

UBOC Starts January 20th!

Ahhh another acronym for a poker tournament series! It's not exactly the WSOP. It's not the WCOOP or the SCOOP. It's not even the FTOPS. I don't know if there is any prestige at all involved in winning a UBOC event, but like the above sets of tournaments the Ultimate Bet Online Championship will be loaded with under qualified players taking their shot at six figure pay days. The action starts January 20th and goes until the 31st.

There are 18 events with buy ins ranging from $109 to $2,600. Here is the full schedule if you're interested.

There are 9 events with buy ins totalling about $2,500 that I'm 95% sure I'll play. Towards the end of the series there are two $1,000 buy in events and one $500 event that I'll probably skip if I get stomped in the first 9. But I'll give them a go if I've been doing well. One major downside of this series is that most of the tournaments go off at 5:00 pacific so I'm going to have some late nights if I do well.

They are running an interesting promotion where you win prizes based on how many cashes you have in the series. Here are the prizes:

11 cashes $1,000,000
10 cashes $100,000
9 cashes $10,000 WSOP main event entry and $10,000 UB Aruba buy in
8 cashes $10,000 UB Aruba buy in
7 cashes $1,000 online tournament entry
6 cashes $500 online tournament entry
5 cashes $500 online tournament entry
4 cashes $300 online tournament entry
3 cashes $200 online tournament entry
2 cashes entry into a $10K prize pool freeroll

I have plans to play 5 of the first 7 events and you can bet that if I cash in 3 or 4 of them I'll expand my schedule and make a go at 8 or 9 cashes. I'll do my best to post about my results, but as my loyal readers know I tend to start strong with the recaps and then fade after a few days of blogging every day.

Even though this is the "Ultimate Bet" online championship, I'll be playing it on Absolute Poker. A year or two ago these two websites joined to increase their traffic, but they're still independent in some ways. The point is if you want to watch the action live you can go to www.absolutepoker.com, download the software and do a search for acessedai (that's not a typo I have an extra "s" in my AP username compared to my pokerstars name). I'll also try to post some on twitter as I go (as you can probably see my tweets will show up on the right side of the blog).

Wish me luck!

New Year's Poker Resolutions

I'm not much for new year's resolutions. Apparently the top ten are:

1. Spend more time with family and friends
2. Get fit
3. Lose weight
4. Quit smoking
5. Enjoy life more
6. Quit drinking
7. Get out of debt
8. Learn something new
9. Help others
10. Get organized

How the hell are you going to enjoy life more if you quit drinking and smoking and spend time helping others? Let's go get drunk and pick on some short people! In all seriousness those things all seem important, but I feel like I have at least a good handle on most of them.

On the other hand I'm always looking to improve my profession. This year my resolution is to be more businesslike and professional about my poker playing.

I've gotten out of the habit of keeping tight records. I know how much I've won and lost, but I can only guess about what is the most profitable use of my time. This year I'm going to get back to tracking exactly how many hands I played, in what games, on what sites, and exactly how many dollars I've won and lost in every session.

The second part of my plan is to play more and keep a more consistent schedule. I don't have any trouble getting motivated when I feel like I really need the money. But when all I've been doing is slaughtering it's hard to get up that hour or two earlier, or take a 30 minute lunch instead of a 2 hour one, or play until 7 instead of bailing out at 5. Can you blame me? It feels all but impossible to push through another 500 hands when I'm ahead $1,000 for the day, $5,000 for the week and my two year old son is saying "Daddy, come play with me!"

One of the ways I cope with devastating losses is by coming up with a plan. Once I have a plan I always feel better. But I don't need a huge loss to come up with a plan! I have one right now! A plan that I'm sure I will stick to for at least a full 2% of 2010! My plan is to use 75% more exclamation marks!

Actually my plan is to play 50,000 hands a month. That's significantly less than I did in 2008, and while that's about what I did in 2009 I'm going to do it playing 4 games at a time instead of going to 6 or 7 when I feel like I need to bang out a ton of hands.

If I can make 25 cents a hand that would be $150,000 for the year. I don't think that's unreasonable since I've been making more than that since switching to AP and cake poker.

In the longer term I always thought to my self that it would be great to have career winnings of $1,000,000 before I turned 30. I'll be 30 on February 16th so barring an absurd tournament win, I'm going to come up short. But my new goal is to make $2,000,000 between 30 and 40. As long as we're talking 10 year plans, I'm also going to make a WSOP final table during that time.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(I told you about the exclamation point plan right!?!)

A Lucky Misclick

My Streak of $1,000+ wins came to an end at 6. But I did win two more days before I took a moderate loss. In the days following that, I booked three wins and only one loss, with one $1,000+ win. In short I've still been doing really well, but haven't been unilaterally slaughtering everyone who gets dealt in against me.

Here is hand in which I got really lucky in an unconventional way.

Stage #1810643687: Holdem Normal $10/$20 - 2009-12-21 16:11:39.000 (ET) [ 2009-12-21 16:11:39 ]
Table: Lodi.16 (Real Money) Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 3 - PADDY516 ($2,548.50 in chips)
Seat 4 - ACESSEDAI ($787 in chips)
Seat 5 - MRFUSSY ($1,204 in chips)
Seat 1 - SCOTT86 ($169 in chips)
Seat 2 - BILLYBEANE ($726 in chips)
ACESSEDAI - Posts small blind $5
MRFUSSY - Posts big blind $10
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to ACESSEDAI [Ah Ac]
SCOTT86 - Raises $20 to $20
BILLYBEANE - Folds
PADDY516 - Calls $20
ACESSEDAI - Folds
MRFUSSY - Folds
*** FLOP *** [6s 4s Jh]
SCOTT86 - Bets $10
PADDY516 - Calls $10
*** TURN *** [6s 4s Jh] [5c]
SCOTT86 - Bets $20
PADDY516 - Raises $40 to $40
SCOTT86 - Calls $20
*** RIVER *** [6s 4s Jh 5c] [7s]
SCOTT86 - Checks
PADDY516 - Bets $20
SCOTT86 - Calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PADDY516 - Shows [8s 10s] (Flush, ten high)
SCOTT86 - Mucks
PADDY516 Collects $192 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot($195) | Rake ($3)
Board [6s 4s Jh 5c 7s]
Seat 1: SCOTT86 HI: [Mucked] [Qh Js]
Seat 2: BILLYBEANE Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 3: PADDY516 (dealer) won Total ($192) HI:($192) with Flush, ten high [8s 10s - P:10s,P:8s,B:7s,B:6s,B:4s]
Seat 4: ACESSEDAI (small blind) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 5: MRFUSSY (big blind) Folded on the POCKET CARDS

Every now and then when you're playing online you click a button that you don't mean to. On this hand I had AA and I accidentally clicked fold before the flop! AHHHHHHHH! If I haven't been doing well this type of thing will make me totally bananas.

Imagine what it feels like as you watch the pot build and someone else take it down profiting hundreds of dollars that should have been yours. It's one thing to make an error of judgement that costs you or bad break fueled by the deck, but having a flinch of your finger cost you can be too much to handle. It's like realizing that you gave a toll collector two c-notes instead of two singles or having ten $20 bills blow out of your hand in a strong wind and go rocketing across a busy street never to be seen again.

Happily this hand was the exact opposite. It turns out I would have been against one player with top pair and another who flopped a flush draw. No doubt we would have had heavy action on the flop. On the turn the player with the flush draw picked up a straight draw too and raised with it. On the river he made the flush which would have squashed my AA. I'm guessing I saved $110-$150 by accidentally folding and perhaps equally importantly my state of mind was effected positively which allowed me to keep playing my A game.

Right now I'm on vacation, but expect to put in 500-1,000 hands a day at my in laws house. Holiday weekends are almost always the best times to play so for those of you who play, you might want to put in a few more hours this Saturday and Sunday. It should be worth it.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

The First Time I Ever Won $1,000

The first time I ever played a poker tournament I was the first one out. But the second time I had much more success.

Back in 2001 the Oaks Club ran a limit tournament with a $60 buy-in and a $50 rebuy. It ran every Wednesday night at 6:30 and usually drew about 50 players which is a microscopic field by today's standards. I strolled into the Oaks around 3 p.m. ignoring the fact that I had a 4 o’clock class and saw that the tournament would be running later that night. I decided to play $6-$12 and if I could win more than $110 I would use it to get into the tournament.

After a nice, straight forward 3 hour session picked up almost two racks of grey $2 chips and headed to the cage. I’d won about $180 and even though my plan was play the tournament with my winnings I started to have second thoughts. $180 was a solid win for me and I knew it would sour the day for me if I blew back almost half my profits in the tournament. I headed to the Oaks restaurant to have a burger and think things through. In the end I decided I probably wouldn’t have too many chances to play the tournament and still leave a solid winner for the day even if I didn’t cash. I paid my entry fee and hesitantly awaited the start of the tournament.

I ran good the entire way through and even though I had plenty of chips and we were playing limit, I was terrified as we approached the money bubble. To say I was nervous at the final table would be an insane understatement. First place was a little over $2,000 and my biggest win to date was $350. I was still at the stage where winning a hundred bucks felt like a strong win and even hitting $500 seemed like so much money that I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

I ended up playing 3 handed with a guy named Simon who was a regular and a young Filipino guy I knew from the $3/$6 game. Even though I’d decided Simon sucked based on how he'd been playing and didn’t think much of my other opponent, I was instantly smitten with the idea of a deal when Simon mentioned it. I was terrified of making a mistake that would cost me many hundreds of dollars and this gave me a chance to lock up my profits.

I had about a quarter of the chips, the other player had slightly less than I did and Simon had a little more than half of the chips in play. His opening proposal was to take $100 off of the $2,100 first place and give it to us which we would then split along with the rest of the prize money.

Although this was only my second tournament and my first deal negotiation I was not born yesterday. I knew this was a shitty deal and when I told him that in so many words he said “but I have twice as many chips as you.” To which I immediately replied “yeah, but I’m twice as good as you.” It’s not like me to razz anyone like that and to me it looked like his head was going to explode.

We played a few more hands and found ourselves in the same chips positions when I proposed that I take second place money [$1,060] (If I had exactly 25% of the chips and we did a deal based on chip count I should have gotten $1,127 so I screwed myself a little if I remember the prizes correctly), Simon take 1st place money less $300 [$1,800] and the other fellow take third place money plus $300 [$975]. After a bunch of hemming and hawing where everyone says “I’ll play if you want, but I guess the deal is ok, what do you guys want to do?” several times, we finally all agreed.

After Simon agreed and our other opponent said “ok let’s do it,” I pounded my fist against the table and said “Yes, Alright!” It wasn’t as thrilling as wining the last hand to claim outright victory, but god damn it I was fired up. I instantly felt bad that I’d told Simon I was twice as good as him, apologized and shook his hand.

I drove home on cloud nine. When I saw my friends I said "guess how much I won today?" Someone said "Five hundred!" and then they all laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. "More!" I said. "Seven?!?!?" They said. "NO!, $1,130!!!" "Holy shit!"

That was really an amazing day. I'm not sure how much money I'd have to win to be that excited today, but it's a lot. It's very nice new car kind of money.

I was thinking of that day because today was the 6th straight day that I've won over $1,000. I'm sure I've never done that before, and while it doesn't feel mind blowing it still feels pretty good. I hope I can keep the streak alive tomorrow.

A NL Hand, a Comment Respose and a New Streak

While I'm mostly abandoned pokerstars I did jump into a $10/$20 8-game mixed games cash game a few days ago. I bought in for $300 and cashed out with over $1,000 15 minutes later.

Here is one of the key hands I played which I thought was interesting (I'll recap the action after the hand history for those of you who aren't used to reading them).

*********** # 1 **************
PokerStars Game #36600747096: 8-Game (Hold'em No Limit, $2.50/$5.00 USD) - 2009/12/12 15:46:14 ET
Table 'Glaukos IX' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: ACESEDAI ($332 in chips)
Seat 2: bd3109 ($545 in chips)
Seat 3: aikiman ($585.10 in chips)
Seat 5: FisherProker ($421.90 in chips)
Seat 6: -Bay777- ($883.05 in chips)
-Bay777-: posts small blind $2.50
ACESEDAI: posts big blind $5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ACESEDAI [Kh Jc]
bd3109: raises $10 to $15
aikiman: folds
FisherProker: folds
-Bay777-: folds
ACESEDAI: calls $10
*** FLOP *** [Js Jd Jh]
ACESEDAI: checks
badabang has returned
bd3109: bets $20
ACESEDAI: raises $35 to $55
bd3109: calls $35
*** TURN *** [Js Jd Jh] [Qs]
ACESEDAI: checks
bd3109: bets $75
ACESEDAI: calls $75
*** RIVER *** [Js Jd Jh Qs] [8d]
ACESEDAI: bets $187 and is all-in
bd3109: calls $187
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESEDAI: shows [Kh Jc] (four of a kind, Jacks)
bd3109: shows [8c 8s] (a full house, Jacks full of Eights)
ACESEDAI collected $664.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $666.50 | Rake $2
Board [Js Jd Jh Qs 8d]
Seat 1: ACESEDAI (big blind) showed [Kh Jc] and won ($664.50) with four of a kind, Jacks
Seat 2: bd3109 showed [8c 8s] and lost with a full house, Jacks full of Eights
Seat 3: aikiman folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: FisherProker (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: -Bay777- (small blind) folded before Flop


Playing NL hold'em with blinds of $2.50/$5 I called a raise to $15 in the big blind with KJ. This hand can be trouble in no limit since it tends to make second best hands, but since we were playing 5 handed I thought it was too tight to let it go.

The flop came down J J J! Talk about monster flops! I had a little over $300 in front of me and my goal was to get as much of it in the pot as possible without losing my opponent.

Step 1 was check raising the flop which was a no brainer. I figured my opponent would bet no matter what he had and sure enough he fired out $20 into the $30 pot. My options were to raise now, call with the plan of betting out on the turn, or call with the plan of check raising the turn. I almost never call and then bet out on the turn so I threw that option out of the window.

In the end I decided that check raising the flop would look a little weaker than calling the flop and check raising the turn. I was also worried that if I waited for the turn to try and check raise again my opponent would check behind me which would be a minor disaster. When you have a huge hand like this it's important to build to pot early so your opponents get tied to it and you can make bigger bets on later betting rounds.

I made it $55 to go. I picked this amount because it was enough that my opponent could put me on a bluff (if I made it $40 it would surely look like I had a big hand), but it wasn't so much that he would be forced to fold a hand like KQ or AT. I wanted those hands calling because if they hit I'd be sure to get paid off.

My opponent called and the turn was a Q. This was a great card for me. If my opponent had a Q I would probably double up on the hand no matter what I did on the turn. But I didn't want to scare away a small pair or two big cards that might get there on the river. So I decided to check and make it look like I was scared of the queen or just bailing out on a bluff.

My opponent bet $75 much to my delight. If I moved all in here I would be raising him $187 above and beyond the $75 he'd put in the pot. At this point I felt like he had something, but I wasn't sure it was enough to call that big of a check raise. Instead I opted to just call the turn and bet out all in on the river.

An all in bet out of position after just calling the turn tends to look like a desperation bluff. The river was an 8 which didn't improve my opponent's hand since he had 88, but happily he called me anyway probably hoping I had a pair below 8.

There were a lot of ways to go with this hand, but it is a great example of planning your hand and setting up moves you're going to make on later betting rounds. I'm not sure I would have made the maximum had I played it more straight forwardly.

Shifting gears, Adam from Vegas recently posted a comment saying: "I really feel that online poker has went downhill so much in the last 2 years that its tough for it to be profitable anymore."

I agree. It's much, much tougher than it used to be. A big part of it is it's so much harder to get money into the websites these days and casual players aren't willing to jump through all the hoops or pay the fees that it takes to get money in.

Another part is the access to strategic information. When I first started playing poker in 9 years ago if you went to the book store there would be about 10 books on poker and half of them were total garbage. Now there are hundreds. On top of that there are better articles, online forums and software to help you with your game.

When I first started playing online anyone could be a winner if they read a book or two. Now it takes a ton of experience and a ton of study to win even at the lower stakes.

It's not impossible though. I've only had one losing month this year. I read in carplayer this week that congress did a study that full legalization and regulation of online poker would result in 41.8 BILLION dollars in tax revenue over the next ten years. That's the kind of money that's hard to ignore. Hopefully those ass holes will finally do something and we'll have a huge influx of new players. I'd guess that the first year that any American can deposit with a credit card I'll make half a million dollars.

For now I'm on a good run. I've won the last 4 days that I've played and the worst of those wins was over $1,000. Hopefully I can keep up this good run into the holidays.

More Good News from the Smaller Websites

AP has started running a promotion where they offer double absolute points between the hours of 10 and 1 (pacific), during both the morning and night hours. As I looked at the points I was racking up I started to think about the percentage of rakeback I was getting during those hours. Playing 10/20 on average I'm paying about 25 cents per hand in rake. If I play 1,000 hands the website gets $250 from me personally.

But I get 30% of that money back in straight rakeback which is $75 for those same 1,000 hands. Also I'm constantly clearing reload bonuses at the rate of about 5 cents a hand so that's another $50. I've estimated that I'm making about 2.5 cents per hand in value as far as the monthly rake race goes so that's another $25. Lastly during double AP points hours I'm making about 9 AP points per hand which is worth about 6.5 cents or another $65 for 1,000 hands. Put all together and I'm actually getting 86% of my rake back! This is totally absurd! It's $100 an hour for breaking even in the games! I have to start working harder.

In other good news I've been playing $20/$40 on cake poker the past two days. In the past $10/$20 was the highest stakes games that went, but there have been two $20/$40's today and yesterday. What's exciting is not the stakes, but the quality of the play. If you went to the lowliest casino in Reno with a poker room, went to the lowest stakes game and hucked a chip at everyone's head, the last guy to notice that he'd been popped in the noggin would be of the quality of some of the players I've been facing. It's truly astounding.

The only thing working against me is I get too excited. Holy shit! Look at the things these guys are doing! I need to get their money now before it goes to my other opponents who barely have a clue, but who look like Doyle Brunson compared to these other guys!

We've been spending money like it's going out of style lately and I've been taking too much time off so I'm my bankroll isn't exactly where I want it to be, but the future is looking bright.

Testimonials

As some of you may have noticed I've been getting a little bit of spam in the comments section of my blog. Mostly it's been one post telling you how you can get rich quick. I am shocked at how many adds I see on late night TV, in print and on the Internet that use testimonials from "real people" who have made "up to" many thousands of dollars a week or a month "from home!"

If all you have to sell your product is testimonials you're "system" is a "big steaming pile of shit" in my humble opinion.

Let me tell you about a system that blows all of these others out of the water. You have a system where I can make $10,000 a month? That's a pittance! In this system that I know about literally thousands of people from all walks of life, with all educational backgrounds have made millions of dollars. In fact on average these people are not that smart! These people come from all over the country and some of them have made tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars with no effort and only a $1 investment!

A $1 investment?!?!? YES! Invest a buck and make millions! Thousands have already done it! It takes no time at all and you can do it from almost anywhere!

GO BY A LOTTO TICKET YOU SUCKERS!

F-ing testimonials.

Cake in Your Face!

I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving. I spent the week at my in-laws house in Orange County. I ate more than my share of turkey, watched plenty of football, saw a few movies and even took my two year old son to the beach.

But I also spent a fair amount of time working. In fact I did enough that I ended up finishing 2nd in the monthly rake race at rackbacknation.com which was worth $775. I think to some extent everyone else got derailed by the holidays so even thought I didn't put in a first class effort I did enough for a strong result.

I also picked up a few more bucks in the AP daily points races. In total I made $1,050 from that promotion. I did get totally hosed on one occasion though. On that day I started playing relatively late not logging on until 12:30. But my father in law Gerry who has been getting his feet wet in some low stakes limit hold'em games was watching over my shoulder, I was playing well and enjoying myself, and before I knew it I'd played for 6 hours with only one 20 minute break. When I checked the daily points standings I saw that I had a chance to win the race for that day.

After a short break for dinner I logged back on at 7 pacific time which meant there were only two hours left in the race (it ended at midnight eastern). After 45 minutes I had what I would describe as perhaps the most frustrating internet experience of my life.

Problems with my technology not working MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY! AHHHHHHHH!!!!

In this instance I was able to connect to the internet, log on to AP, get into games and then it would just lock up. Over the span of an hour or so I tried 4 different computers (two of which required installing the AP software) and multiple reboots of the router and cable modem. A dozen times I logged on got dealts a few hands and then FREEZE! Everything would stop.

If I'd been able to play that last hour I'm not positive I would have won the race and picked up $500, but I would have at least been able to finish 2nd which paid $400. Instead I got $150 for finishing 5th.

I ended up winning over $1,300 that day and I earned a ton of rakeback and points so I should have felt great and I did feel pretty good. But the next day I got stung for $1,800. Right out of the gate I felt tense and I can't help but wonder if the stress from the previous day played a part.

The day after I tried playing in a coffee shop for a little while, but again I didn't have a good mindset. My laptop is 5 years old and is as slow as a dead snail. I had problems with booting and crashing and logging on to the wireless network and it took me 30 minutes from the time I sat down to the time I got my first hand. From hand 1 I was feeling negative and after an hour or so and a small loss I packed it in.

But now I'm back home. Ah home sweet home. I always feel at peace when I sit down in the morning in my usual chair with my lightning quick desktop with my hot cup of coffee. Yesterday I got off to a terrible start and found myself stuck $2,000. But I didn't let it get to me and I came all the way back to have a small win.

Today I smashed a few people right in the face on cake poker picking up $1,800 in only 750 hands of $8/$16. About half of those hands were heads up and I took the entire starting stack of 3 different players who took me on one on one. To make it all the sweeter I picked up another $700 in 1,000 hands on AP.

This is going to be my first full month of non pokerstars play. I have high hopes and lofty goals. Since I have two more weeks of vacation coming in the next 6 weeks I'm going to really need to bust my ass so I can afford to take all that time off!

The AP Points Race

It's been two weeks since my last post and not much of significance has happened since then. I played a total of 5 FTOPS tournaments: $216 6-max NLH, $216 7-game mixed games, $109 NLH with rebuys, $535 HORSE, and $216 6 max limit hold'em. It was brick city in all of them (I came closest to the money in the HORSE).

I spent a fair amount of time playing on Absolute Poker (AP). Each month the website through which I get rakeback runs a promotion called a "rake race" where they give prizes to the customers who earn the most rake on various poker sites. Last month with a part time effort I finished 2nd which was worth $775.

After my streak of 11 straight winning days I had a significant run of losing days. I've been really conflicted lately because if I make it to 600,000 base FPPs on pokerstars by the end of they year I earn a $6,000 bonus. Right now I'm 67,000 points away which is not a ton (I averaged 83,000 points a month last year), but I have been getting killed on pokerstars! On the other hand I have been killing on absolute poker doing fine in limited action on cake poker.

I haven't really run the numbers to see what I should do, but I'm going to do it right now!

$6,000 is a lot of money to leave hanging out there and in making it to that point I'd pick up about $3,000 in FPPs so really I'm looking at $9,000 for breaking even over about 50,000 hands on 10/20. That's 18 cents an hand which amounts to about 65% rakeback!

Now I'm going to look at what those 50,000 hands will make me on AP. I think I get about 9 cents a hand in rake back so that's $4,500. I'd earn 187,500 absolute points (the AP version of FPPs) which are worth about $1,300. I'd get two prizes in the rakeback nation monthly rake race (One for November and one for December). Conservatively I could get 3rd place this month and 2nd next month which would be $1,400. So really I'm looking at $7,200 in bonus money on AP and $9,000 on pokerstars. That's closer than I thought. When I factor in that I'm going to be playing in cupcake games instead of ball busting ones, it seems like a clear decision.

But there's more! For the rest of this month AP is offering a daily points race. The top 10 players who earn the most points each day get a cash prize. Here is the list of prizes:

1st $500
2nd $400
3rd $300
4th-6th $150
7th-8th $100
9th-10th $75

I found out half way through the first day which was the 17th so I didn't make the top 10. But I put in a major effort yesterday and came in third. I took today off, but my effort from yesterday would have put me in a solid second.

The points they use to determine the race are "status points." I'm not sure what the rules are for other stakes, but at the levels I play I get two points every time I play hand that A) I put money into the pot by, raising, calling or posting a blind and B) they rake the pot. It turns out I make about .75 status points per had on average.

Yesterday I played about 3,300 hands and made 2,500 or so points. The second place finisher had around 3,000, 1st had 4,500 or so and the fellow in 4th had about 50 less than I did. In fact I played some at the 11th hour to move past him and since it was much later in other parts of the world I'm sure he was long done with his day.

Today 1st place was won by the same guy (who also plays 6 max limit hold 'em, but plays more games at a time and longer hours than I do) who again was over 4,000 points. But 2nd was 2,100 and 3rd was only 1,900.

I'm not sure what's going to happen to the numbers over the weekend and if they guy who has been winning keeps it up I'm not going to get 1st. But I should be able to pile up a few seconds and thirds and should have a fairly easy time getting into the top 6 without really busting my ass. I'm going to give it my best over these next three days and hopefulle pick up and extra grand.

So with that in mind I'm going to be totally AP focused for the rest of the month. And given that, I'm probably going to bail on pokerstars altogether. I'm not 100% on that, but it seems like it's headed that way. It makes me a little sad. :(

FTOPS XIV Event #1

FTOPS XIV Event #1 was $216 6-max NL hold'em. This tournament started with 4,694 players which meant we had a few hundred fewer players than would be needed to meet the $1,000,000 guarantee paying full juice. Instead of $200 a player going to the prize pool and $16 going to the house, $213 from every player went to the pool and $3 to the house.

I registered about 20 minutes after the tournament started and was faced with a tough decision right away. We all started with 5,000 chips and during the hand in question the blinds were 15/30. The under the gun player made it 60 to go and got called by the button. I was in the big blind with TT and raised to 240. The under the gun player called and then the button made it 900 to go. What?

It's very unusual for a player to call a raise (especially a minimum raise) initially and then rereraise later on the same round. When it happens it's almost always AA, but sometimes it's a player acting on a total whim and pushing a hand like QJ. In this case I decided it was probably AA and just bailed out.

If I was playing a $1,000 tournament folding would have been an easy decision, but in a $200 tournament I really wanted to just drop the all in bomb and see what happened. Of course that's not a good mindset to have and it's important to always play your best regardless of stakes.

The hand that really derailed me came about an hour later. Again the under the gun player came in for a raise when I was in the big blind. But this time I had AA. He raised, I reraised, he called and the flop came down king high. I bet about half the pot and my opponent raised me. "Ah ha!" I thought. "He has a king and now I will get his entire stack!" I was right about the first part.

I just called his flop raise and after a blank came on the turn I check raised him all in. At this point there was something like 6,000 in the pot and he only had 900 or so left, but probably knowing he was beat he still took a long time calling with KQ. 39 of the 44 cards left in the deck would make me a winner, but the river was a queen and I was down to 2,000 chips.

A little while later I'd climbed back close to 3,000 chips. I was in the small blind with K6 suited and raised the big blind who just called. The flop was 8 high with two hearts, I bet three quarters of the pot and my opponent called. I had a strong sense that I was against a draw or maybe just overcards taking one off. Feeling bold I moved all in for about 2,000 into the 1,500 chip pot. My opponent thought for a moment and then called with A2 of hearts which was nothing but a flush draw...and the best hand since I was on a total bluff. The river was a blank and the ace high held up. This was a situation where if I knew exactly what my opponent had I would have played it the same way on the turn.

Today I have Event #2 which is 7-game mixed. It's all the HORSE games, plus NL hold'em and PLO (the same as the pokerstars 8-game mixed format except there's no triple draw lowball). An hour in I'm up to 7,000 chips from a starting stack of 4,000.

The Highs, The Lows and FTOPS XIV

My streak of winning days came to an end on Sunday, but not before I'd won 11 days that I'd played in a row - my best run ever in terms of winning days in a row! I lost $700, which after being down $2,500 at one point, was an adequate result.

Amazingly I was still a little (just a little) upset about losing. A few days before I'd won $1,500 during the day in a few hours and then later on my laptop I scooped up another $800 during one episode of survivor. In the midst of the streak that $800 felt like an extra sprinkle on a very large cupcake. I was feeling very "whatever" about it at the time. Which leads me to a question: why in the world would I be upset about losing $700 when I barely cared about winning that extra $800?

I'm constantly battling my emotions, trying to stay as cold and logical about everything as possible. Sometimes it's easy. After all I know that losing sessions, days, weeks and even months are part of the deal. Even the best players lose some of the time. I've had hundreds of losing days and scores of losing weeks and everything is still fine.

During the stretches where my emotional control is at it's highest I brush off losses and bad beats like they are nothing. I almost feel amused when my aces go down, and my straights get flushed time after time. I some how manage to think "Oh, well. I'm sure this will turn around. Just stick with the plan and the cards will even out soon enough." That is how I'd like to be all the time and it is how I am the vast majority of the time.

In other instances I get upset about nothing. I curse out loud. I slap my hand against my forehead or bang my mouse on the arm of my chair. I feel tension throughout my entire body, just because I've lost a few hands or I'm down a few hundred dollars. This is not how a professional should act! I look back on my reactions and wonder why I was being such a buffoon. Swearing out loud? Really? What good is that doing?

Of course the problem is, simply that losing sucks! If you watch Tiger Woods play golf, you'll see him get pissed all the time. He'll get upset that he missed a 20 foot put on the second day of some random tournament. What sort of significance could that put have in the scheme of his life? ZERO! He's got hundred of millions of dollars, an amazimg wife and family, and a world of people who think he's awesome. He could never swing a club again and he'd still be a legend. But he wants and expects to win every tournament and make every shot. And that's how I feel too. I want those aces to hold up every time. I want every bluff to work. And damn it, I want to win every f-ing day that I get dealt a hand! And I get upset (just a little) when I don't.

I also find it more than a little annoying that I get upset. I know, by the next day or the next week I'm not going to care at all unless it was a major back breaking loss. I couldn't tell you anything about any of the losses I had in September. They are all far in the past, but I'm sure some if not all of them bothered me at the time.

Another thing I find annoying is I wish I could get more excited about winning. When I first started playing even though the money wasn't very significant in the big picture, the highs were much higher. I would have to win at least $100,000 to feel the way I did the first time I won $1,000 in a day (my biggest win leading up to that point was $350).

When I have a good win I try to think about it as much as possible and squeeze every ounce of joy I can out of it. But these days is really feels more like satisfaction that the elation that I felt when I was 21.

Anyway, I'm going to take a shot at some elation in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series XIV (FTOPS) starting tomorrow. Here is the full schedule if anyone would like to see it, but it's pretty much the same old same old FTOPS schedule.

I think I'm going to take $3,000 and play as many tournaments as I can with it (I probably won't take on any backers this time around with one or two exceptions), making sure I hit the $535 HORSE event and the $216 6-max limit event, but otherwise taking it one day at a time.

I'm not really as pumped about these FTOPS tournaments as I used to be since they have an FTOPS every 3 months, but it could still be big if I knock one out of the park.

We're Going Streaking!

I am on a great run! Today I won $1,500 in a few short hours of play on Cake and Absolute poker.

There is this movie Knockaround Guys (which is an OK movie) starting Vin Diesel, Seth Green, and a few other people you might have heard of that I think about sometimes when I'm playing on these other sites.

In the movie the main characters who are a bunch of New York (I think) gangsters, and sons of mafia types who are major king pins, lose a bag of money with hundreds of thousands of dollars in it. They know what town it ended up in, but don't know who has it. So their plan is to go to the toughest bar then can find in the town, find the toughest guy in that bar, and beat the shit out of him. That way everyone in the town will be interested in helping them find their money.

In the online poker world, pokerstars is New York and if you're a tough guy there than you're a tough guy anywhere. While I'm not the mafia boss, I'm certainly a wise guy and sometimes I feel like I'm beating the shit out of the toughest guys in the suburbs.

I'm on one of my best streaks ever. I've won 10 days in a row with no win of less than $500!

Cruisin' for a Bruisin!

After a week of vacation I'm back home and I have a post laden with F-Bombs for you! In general my vacation was great, but I have a few choice words (or more than a few...paragraphs) for a certain operation.

The main purpose of this vacation was to go on a 4 night cruise to Mexico with my wife and two of our closest friends (our son stayed with is grandparents and got 4 days of rule bending grandparent love).

I got a little sea sick (think 2 out of 10 with 0 being no seasickness and 10 being puking over the rail the whole time) once we pulled out into the open ocean even though we were sailing through calm waters. The food was better than I expected, and since we were paying for drinks they were very good as well. We drank a lot, sang karaoke (poorly, but with lots of energy) 3 of the 4 nights, and took part in a few of the organized cruise activities.

The highlight of the trip was a one hour Kayak tour of "The Bufadora" which literally means "blowhole". It's a geologic formation that is essentially a long, thin tunnel that fills up with a mixture or air and water as waves come in and then shoots the water between 30 and 100 feet in the air based on the intensity of the wave. We also spent some time paddling around the surrounding bay looking at star fish, rock formations and whatnot.

It was pretty amazing and was only over shadowed by the tacos we had afterwards. We had to take a bus ride from the boat to the Bufadora and on the way back our tour guide (who was a local) took us to a hole in the wall taco stand that was packed. The were making the tortillas and grilling the meat right in front of us. When a taco got to your mouth, 60 seconds earlier the meat was on the grill and the tortilla didn't exist yet. It was awesome.

But this blog is about poker and gambling so now I'm going to talk about the casino on the ship! Here is what I have to say about the Carnival Cruise Line casino (and this is in no way based on my results which were slightly negative, but not unreasonable)...FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO!

I'm not sure how many casinos I've been to, but it's at least 50 and probably closer to 100. This was without a doubt the worst one. Allow me to explain why starting with the less significant and moving to the down right ridiculous.

There was a $5 craps game that had 2 times odds as the maximum odds you could take on a passline or come bet. I've never seen that before. But more annoying was how quickly they moved the dice. On a few occasions the stickman was pushed the dice to the shooter before the other dealers were done getting the odds bets from the previous roll set!

Another indication of the rushed atmosphere was that I didn't get at pass line bet down before the come out roll two times in a row. I don't think that's ever happened to me before and I've been drunk at a lot of craps tables for hours and hours. Over the course of 30 minutes there were a half dozen occasions where I thought "Holy Shit! There are the dice! I can't believe the rolled already!" To make things worse, the dealers were making mistakes here and there, so I didn't have confidence that I was being paid correctly (which meant I had to really pay attention) and most of the other players didn't know what they were doing so I had to make sure no one was going to scoop up my money thinking it was theirs.

But that's not really that bad. Worse was that they adjusted the payouts on some of the games! For example they paid 3 to 1 on a flush in 3 card poker instead of 4 to 1. That might not seem like a big deal, but in a normal Vegas casino 3 card poker has a house edge of 2.3% meaning for every $100 you bet in the long run you can expect to get back $97.70. Not too bad. With the table they were using the house edge was 7.3%! ACK! For a comparison roulette (which is one of the worst games) has a house edge of 5.25%. They'd also made similar draconian adjustments to the payout scales on Let it Ride and Caribbean stud which were the only other games that they offered using payout tables.

To sum up they made regular casino games HARDER to beat! The system that Vegas has used to build all those billion dollar hotels was too soft for them! I don't even want to know what they did to the slot machines.

As a brief aside we at dinner at a very large round table and one fellow kindly informed us, as if he was sharing a real gem that we should most certainly take to heart, that "craps and roulette are the best games in the casino." Why thank you kind gent for sharing your expert opinion and giving us lay folk the vital information we need to win in the casino. I'll get right to the roulette wheel. In your opinion what numbers are best to bet?

Some other douchebag (and it's a kindness to leave it at just that) was talking about his "system" for beating slot machines. Shortly after he had to think about hitting 7 in blackjack. You've got a 5 and a 2 pal! Even though they're trying to screw you at every opportunity, there didn't put any 15's in the deck!

Now is where I get extra worked up. On the website they go on and on about how it's a cashless boat and you can bet everything with this magic card. When you get on they give you a card that's liked to your credit card and you can use it to buy anything on the ship. It's also your room key and what you need to show to get off and on the boat at the various ports. In the casino you can buy chips with this card, but they charge you a 3% fee! You bastards are going to gouge me on every game in the house and before you do it, you want to take 3% off the top! FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO!

But wait! There's more! You can go to old downtown in Vegas, play $1 roulette and drink for free all night, but the drinks were normal price in the casino! $4.95 plus an included mandatory 15% tip for a Budweiser!

Which leads me to another point. They had a group of $9 drinks on the menu all over the ship. They were good drinks and I was fine paying $9 for them. If you brought a receipt for one of those drinks to the casino cashier they'd give you a "$5 match play" card. Sounds like five bucks off a drink right?" WRONG! If you get promotional chips in a normal casino you play them like normal chips. You bet $5 and if you win you get a normal $5 chip while your promotional chip stays there. If you lose they take it. With these $5 match cards, first of all you had to put $5 of your own money into play as well to use it, and second of all they take the card if you lose AND if you win AND IF YOU PUSH! What's that all about?

I was with my wife and we went up to a black jack table, put down our card with a $5 chip on it, got a 20, the dealer busted and when he went to pay us he put down two $5 chips and took our card. My wife asked what was going on. The dealer and the pit boss then went on a rambling 60 second explanation of how the cards worked using the phrase "just like money."

Just like money? It's not anything like money you dicks! Did I mention that they were dicks? Because if I didn't allow me to now mention that these guys were total dicks! They treated us like we were trying to pull something and like we were idiots, instead of just explaining how it works. Try this you dicks "If you win we pay you an extra $5, but the card is only good for ONE hand and we have to take it every time, win, lose or push (slight understanding frown)."

I'm sure it's not great fun to work in a cruise ship casino, but everyone in there looked and acted like they were in the last 10 minutes of a 16 hour shift.

We haven't even gotten to the worst part yet, but before we get to that let me talk about the poker they had. There was an electronic table with a touch screen at every seat and a large sceen in the middle of the table. I've read a few articles about these tables, but I'd never seen one in person. My review of the table is about the only thing positive I can say about the casino. Actually it's not entirely positive, because I think they should have had a real table, with a real dealer and chips, because that's much more fun and that's what cruise ships are supposed to be about!

But the table itself worked perfectly. The game was $1/$2 blinds no limit hold'em and you could buy in for a maximum of $200 with your magic card. Actually now that I think about it there was one major flaw in the table, which I'm sure was just the cruise people choosing the options. There was nothing about posting blinds to get your first hand. When you bought in, they just dealt you in. If you sat out and missed the blinds when you sat back in they'd just post them for you without asking no matter what position you were in. I guess they thought that would be too complicated for some reason.

When you got dealt in your touch screen would have a picture of cards face down and if you touched them the top corners would peal up so you could see what you had. When you action got to you, you've have a set of options just like in online poker (you couldn't declare what you were going to do before the action got to you like you can in online poker). You'd select an option like check or fold or whatever and then you have to touch the top right corner of the screen to confirm that's really what you wanted to do. If you wanted to bet or raise there were pictures of $1, $5, $25 and $100 chips which you could touch to create a bet amount. So if you wanted to bet $39 you'd touch the $25, the $5 twice and the $1 four times, then touch the "bet $39" button, followed by the "Confirm Bet $39" button. It sounds like kind of a mess, but it was actually pretty easy to use and the action moved along smoothly.

The biggest problem with the poker was the rake. In the games I play they take $1 for every pot over $20 that goes to the flop, $2 for a pot over $40 and $3 for a pot over $60 with $3 being the max (and I get a bunch of it back in bonuses, FPPs and rakaback). In this game they took 10% of the pot up to $40 and some piece beyond that. I didn't play for too long, there weren't a ton of big pots, and I wasn't really focused on working out the precise rake system, but I saw $8 come out of a $150 or so pot. Since most pots were less than $40 they were taking 10% out of most pots. On average the players were in for about $100 each. That means if you took ALL of the money on the table it was enough to pay the rake for 5 or 6 hours (Maybe 200-250 hands).

I lost a few big hands and decided to call it quits with $37 left in front of me. Foolishly I thought this would be credited back to the account that it came from. What was I thinking? They'd have no chance to screw me over if they did things that way! I found out on the last night of the cruise at 11 pm as I was cashing in a few chips that I had to give them my card and they'd give me $37 in cash. Otherwise that money was gone into la la land. It didn't say that anywhere. The only reason I found out was I was in the casino when they made an announcement. I'd been in there for 5 or 6 hours over the course of the cruise and didn't hear a whisper before the 11th hour. FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO!

I know this has been a long post, but I have yet to get to THE WORSE GOUGING OF ALL TIME! Yes folks I placed not one, but THE TWO WORST WAGERS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE on this cruise.

The first was bingo. They had a large theater for shows and such and on the first night we were there they had bingo (they had it there other nights, but we didn't go). For $10 you could get one bingo card, and for $20 you could get 3 cards. There was some other reason for this gathering other than the bingo, but I can't quite remember what it was. Maybe 200 people were in the room and it looked like half of them were playing bingo. Without a doubt they'd collected a few grand $40 of which came from our group. Guess what the prizes were? ONE $500 prize. Are you fucking kidding me? They played one game which took five minutes and paid out one $500 prize regardless of the money collected.

But wait! It gets worse! There was also a "black jack tournament." Notice the quotes. Calling this a black jack tournament is like calling goat a finely tuned thoroughbred. They told us that the tournament would last from 7:30 to 10:30 and I was surprised that they would run something that would take so long. It sounded like fun. I figured everyone would start with x number of chips and the minimum bet would gradually be raised or we'd play a bunch of hands and whoever had above a certain chip count, say in the top 25% or whatever would move on and then we'd do the same thing again.

Here is the way it actually worked. For $20 you got ten $100 tournament chips. You had 7 hands to turn those chips into as much as possible. We started at 7:30 and at 11:15 the 7 players with the highest chip total would come back and play 7 more hands at "the final table." By the time the action was underway there were 30 or so people signed up to play. The first set of 7 players played their 7 hands, and the best of them ended up with $1,800 in chips. Everyone in my group played in the second round and the best of us ended up with $1,500 in chips.

Here is where things get fishy. The action started at 7:30 and went until 10:30 and they allowed people to enter more than once. While I wasn't there the whole time as far as I can tell they ran this set up at one table constantly from 7:30 until 11:00. Each round lasted something like 6 or 7 minutes and at most 10 minutes. Every time 7 new players sat down that should have been $140 into the prize pool to be payed out to the players at the final table. Right? Isn't that how this should work? Isn't this just something fun to do on the ship or at worst a way to get people into the casino? After all there was plenty of fun stuff to do on the ship that was free. Karaoke was free, mini golf was free, the water slide was free. Hell even the food was free, with 24 hour room service!

So after three and a half hours of collecting $140 from set after set of players every 7 minutes guess what the prizes were? ONE $500 PRIZE! That's right. One prize. $500 regardless of the amount of money collected.

Even if the rounds all took 10 minutes that would be 21 rounds which is $2,940. That's the conservative estimate of what they took in, and they paid out one $500 prize. What a bunch of dicks! Don't do that to your customers Carnival! What the hell is wrong with you! Take 10% off the top or even 20%, but paying out one $500 prize when you've taking in thousands is just wrong. Even the lottery pays out 60% of the money they take in.

I knew ahead of time that there was only one $500 prize on the line, but when we got there at 7:25 and signed up there were only 10 people registered. I thought it was going to be whoever signs up before or at about 7:30 is in the mix. But letting people play as many entries as they want and continuing to take entries for over 3 hours is nuts! The top chip counts were all over $16,000! Guess what? It ain't easy to turn 1,000 chips into 16,000 in 7 hands and that was the worst of the top 7! How many entries do you think that took?

One more time say it with me: FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO! YOU'RE A BUNCH OF DICKS!

Everyone else who worked on the cruise was great or at least fine. The entertainment staff, the dining staff and certainly the bartenders, waiters and waitresses were all friendly and competent if not wonderful.

In other news, after my PANIC! post I have been doing amazingly well. In my last post I mentioned the tournament success. At my in law's house I played maybe 2 hours on Monday and won $700, and hour or two on Tuesday and won $550 and, and hour Wednesday and won $650. That makes 8 straight winning days with the worst of them being $500 to the good. Things have gone from about as bad as they could be, to great. I hope I can keep it up these last few days of the month and into November.