The Badugi tournament was interesting, but not profitable.
One of the things that is frustrating about badugi is that your hand doesn't often improve that often. In hold'em the best hand you can start with is one pair, and you only have two of the seven cards that go into making a showdown hand.
In Badugi if you have a playable hand it means you have 3/4 of or your entire showdown hand already. If you have A23 (the best possible draw) - let's say it's one club, one diamond, one heart - then the only cards that improve your hand are the 4-K of spades. That's only 10 cards out of the remaining 49 in the deck. Clearly starting out with a made 4 card hand is a huge advantage.
In the end I played for about 4 hours, but never got my starting stack of 5K over 7K. $162 out the window in that one.
I got much closer in the heads up matches. We started that tournament with 2,048 players. It takes 3 match wins to make the money and 11 to win the tournament. Somehow it seems like it shouldn't be that hard to only beat 11 guys.
In my first match my opponent was not great. I'd say under these conditions I could beat him 7 or 8 times out of 10. We went back and forth for a long time and while I was ahead almost the whole time it took 120 hands for me to finish him off. In the end he got his money in good with JJ against my 77, but I hit a 7 on the river to win the match.
In match #2 my opponent was much better. I'd say we were very evenly matched. After 82 hands we got it all in (I had him significantly covered) with a small pair for him and A9 for me. A nine came on the river and I was on to match #3.
Match #3 came to an end much quicker. About 10 hands in I got dealt AKs. He raised, I reraised, he popped it again and I put him all in. He called me with 88 and I missed. I still had 1,000 chips to his 9,000 and actually got it back to 2,500 when I got it all in with AJ vs 55. If I win that pot we are back to even. Instead I was out the door, just short of the money.
After 13 tournaments in the FTOPS and SCOOP my $7,500 bankroll is at $6,183.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Monday, May 03, 2010
The Race - Day 2
I was mostly focused on tournament on race day 2, but I did manage 2,100 points, which was enough to finish the 2,000 point milestone 4 and get most of the way through the 2,500 point milestone 5.
Once I get through milestone 5 I will have made $67.50 from the race which is of course total bullshit. But significant prizes are right around the corner.
As far as the game play goes these Carbon poker players are making me crazy! On AP I know everybody and have notes on them all. I don't have a feel for the field on Carbon yet. I'm getting a handle on it, but it's taking longer than I'd hoped.
The thing that's throwing me off is some of the players are pretty good and the rest are incredibly bad but in a very aggressive way. I'm taking a lot of weird bad beats which I know is a good thing in the long run, but tough in the short run.
I hope today is a good one!
Once I get through milestone 5 I will have made $67.50 from the race which is of course total bullshit. But significant prizes are right around the corner.
As far as the game play goes these Carbon poker players are making me crazy! On AP I know everybody and have notes on them all. I don't have a feel for the field on Carbon yet. I'm getting a handle on it, but it's taking longer than I'd hoped.
The thing that's throwing me off is some of the players are pretty good and the rest are incredibly bad but in a very aggressive way. I'm taking a lot of weird bad beats which I know is a good thing in the long run, but tough in the short run.
I hope today is a good one!
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Monday SCOOP Plan
Tomorrow in the morning is 6 max NLH with rebuys. The medium stakes is $55 with rebuys which is nothing special and the high stakes is $530 with rebuys and is a little too steep. 1% chance of my playing either of those.
At 2 PT is limit badugi which I'm about 85% to play. For those of you who don't know what badugi is, let me give you a quick run down. The way it works is you get 4 cards and then there is a round of betting with blinds just like in hold'em. Instead of a flop there is a draw where you can throw away cards from your hand and get new ones. Instead of a turn there is another draw, and instead of a river there is another draw.
The goal of the game is to get the four lowest cards you can with all four suits represented. A 2 3 4 with four different suits is the best possible hand. If you make a pair or if you have two cards that are the same suit then you can only use three of your cards to make your hand. Any four card hand (ie one with four different ranks and suits) beats any three card hand.
Of course if you're comparing 3 card hands to each other the lowest one wins (IE 5677 beats 3389).
Sometime you'll only be able to use two cards to make a hand if you have for example two hearts and two spades in you hand or two pair or three spades and a club. Any three card hand beats any two card hand. Similarly any 1 card hand loses to everything.
A little confusing, but not once you get the hang of it! We'll see what I can do.
At 2 PT is limit badugi which I'm about 85% to play. For those of you who don't know what badugi is, let me give you a quick run down. The way it works is you get 4 cards and then there is a round of betting with blinds just like in hold'em. Instead of a flop there is a draw where you can throw away cards from your hand and get new ones. Instead of a turn there is another draw, and instead of a river there is another draw.
The goal of the game is to get the four lowest cards you can with all four suits represented. A 2 3 4 with four different suits is the best possible hand. If you make a pair or if you have two cards that are the same suit then you can only use three of your cards to make your hand. Any four card hand (ie one with four different ranks and suits) beats any three card hand.
Of course if you're comparing 3 card hands to each other the lowest one wins (IE 5677 beats 3389).
Sometime you'll only be able to use two cards to make a hand if you have for example two hearts and two spades in you hand or two pair or three spades and a club. Any three card hand beats any two card hand. Similarly any 1 card hand loses to everything.
A little confusing, but not once you get the hang of it! We'll see what I can do.
Sunday, Shitty Sunday.
I won't leave you in suspense. 4 tournaments, 4 bricks.
In the first event which was SCOOP #1 I went down the tubes with AA. At one point I had my starting stack of 10K up to 15K, but was back down to 10k when the following hand came up.
The blinds were 150/300 and my opponent made it 600 under the gun. I reraised to 1,500 and he called. The flop came down 8 3 2 all clubs and I had the ace of clubs. He checked I bet 1,800 and he put me all in with 44 (with the 4 of clubs). 4 on the turn, no club, ace or 5 on the river and that was it. That was a very frustrating hand.
The second tournament was the FTOPS knockout. I did bust two players and picked up $80 in bounties. I don't know if I played this hand poorly, but I would have won a huge pot if I played it differently. We started that one with 5,000 chips and I was up to almost 15K when I got dealt QQ. I made it 600 to go and got called by the button and the small blind. The flop came down 9 high with two spades. I bet the pot which was 2,000, the button who had about 10K left called and the small blind moved all in for about 8K.
When the button smooth called me preflop I was thinking it could easily be AA or KK, and after he called my bet on the flop I couldn't think of what he could have that I could beat. Add in the other player raising us both and I thought it was time to bail out. It turns out the button had TT (he called the raise) and the other player had 87 of spades. The turn was a red ten and the river was a red queen. ACK!
I got it all the way up to 22K before coming back to earth. I drizzled away about 6K. Then with blinds of 250/500 the small blind raised to 1,500 and I put him all in for 10,000 with A9s. He called with AQ and I was down to 6,500.
On my final hand I had about 8,000 and went all in vs a raise to 1,500. I had KQs (which was a little thin given my opponents position) and he called me with AJ. The flop came with an A and a J. While the turn gave me a flush draw and some hope, the river was a blank.
That tournament felt like a wasted opportunity.
In SCOOP #2 I got KK twice, was able to reraise twice, but had to fold on A high flops after getting resistance twice. On my final hand I had about 5,500 and got dealt AQ in the small blind. I raised to 600 and got called. THe flop came down 6 7 3 and I bet out 1,200. My opponent put me all in. Given his stack size, my stack size and the flop texture I felt like his raise was total bullshit. I called and he showed me 89 which was more than I gave him credit for. The river came a 9 and that was it.
The FTOPS main event was also a wasted opportunity. Early on I made a straight on the turn when a player with KK got cute before the flop and then checked a set of kings on the flop. When I made my straight on the turn he bet I raised and he called. On the river he just blew all in, I called and took him out. I had my starting stack of 7,500 up to 16,000 after that one.
Later I won a few small pots, and then took out a short stack who went all in with AK vs my 55. I made a successful bluff at a big pot and found myself with 35,000 chips and in the top 100 of the 3,000 remaining players (we started with about 4,500).
Even after a few miscues I was in 429th of 2,300. Then I let someone double through me when I overplayed 99 and they had JJ. After that one I had 7k left and by that time the blinds were 250/500. I never recovered.
In the first event which was SCOOP #1 I went down the tubes with AA. At one point I had my starting stack of 10K up to 15K, but was back down to 10k when the following hand came up.
The blinds were 150/300 and my opponent made it 600 under the gun. I reraised to 1,500 and he called. The flop came down 8 3 2 all clubs and I had the ace of clubs. He checked I bet 1,800 and he put me all in with 44 (with the 4 of clubs). 4 on the turn, no club, ace or 5 on the river and that was it. That was a very frustrating hand.
The second tournament was the FTOPS knockout. I did bust two players and picked up $80 in bounties. I don't know if I played this hand poorly, but I would have won a huge pot if I played it differently. We started that one with 5,000 chips and I was up to almost 15K when I got dealt QQ. I made it 600 to go and got called by the button and the small blind. The flop came down 9 high with two spades. I bet the pot which was 2,000, the button who had about 10K left called and the small blind moved all in for about 8K.
When the button smooth called me preflop I was thinking it could easily be AA or KK, and after he called my bet on the flop I couldn't think of what he could have that I could beat. Add in the other player raising us both and I thought it was time to bail out. It turns out the button had TT (he called the raise) and the other player had 87 of spades. The turn was a red ten and the river was a red queen. ACK!
I got it all the way up to 22K before coming back to earth. I drizzled away about 6K. Then with blinds of 250/500 the small blind raised to 1,500 and I put him all in for 10,000 with A9s. He called with AQ and I was down to 6,500.
On my final hand I had about 8,000 and went all in vs a raise to 1,500. I had KQs (which was a little thin given my opponents position) and he called me with AJ. The flop came with an A and a J. While the turn gave me a flush draw and some hope, the river was a blank.
That tournament felt like a wasted opportunity.
In SCOOP #2 I got KK twice, was able to reraise twice, but had to fold on A high flops after getting resistance twice. On my final hand I had about 5,500 and got dealt AQ in the small blind. I raised to 600 and got called. THe flop came down 6 7 3 and I bet out 1,200. My opponent put me all in. Given his stack size, my stack size and the flop texture I felt like his raise was total bullshit. I called and he showed me 89 which was more than I gave him credit for. The river came a 9 and that was it.
The FTOPS main event was also a wasted opportunity. Early on I made a straight on the turn when a player with KK got cute before the flop and then checked a set of kings on the flop. When I made my straight on the turn he bet I raised and he called. On the river he just blew all in, I called and took him out. I had my starting stack of 7,500 up to 16,000 after that one.
Later I won a few small pots, and then took out a short stack who went all in with AK vs my 55. I made a successful bluff at a big pot and found myself with 35,000 chips and in the top 100 of the 3,000 remaining players (we started with about 4,500).
Even after a few miscues I was in 429th of 2,300. Then I let someone double through me when I overplayed 99 and they had JJ. After that one I had 7k left and by that time the blinds were 250/500. I never recovered.
The Race - Day 1
I ended up earning about 2,800 points on Day 1 of my quest to beat the shit out of Carbon poker's Race promotion. Coupled with day 0's 700 points I knocked out out the 250, 500, and 1,000 point milestones and got most of the way to the 2,000.
I found out a little bit of bad news about carbon poker in general. I thought I'd paid $350 in rake to get my 3,500 points, but because of my 35% rakeback deal I only generate points at 65% of the normal pace. I guess the good news is I paid over $500 in rake so when I got my daily rakeback payment I got close to $200 which was 35% more than I expected.
I didn't have a great day in the games losing $700 or so after being up $500 early, but there were two $10/$20s and two $5/$10's at one point which is promising.
The Race isn't going to be a huge as I thought, but it's still worth thousands of dollars and will be great motivations to get me working hard.
I found out a little bit of bad news about carbon poker in general. I thought I'd paid $350 in rake to get my 3,500 points, but because of my 35% rakeback deal I only generate points at 65% of the normal pace. I guess the good news is I paid over $500 in rake so when I got my daily rakeback payment I got close to $200 which was 35% more than I expected.
I didn't have a great day in the games losing $700 or so after being up $500 early, but there were two $10/$20s and two $5/$10's at one point which is promising.
The Race isn't going to be a huge as I thought, but it's still worth thousands of dollars and will be great motivations to get me working hard.
Big Sunday Action!
The FTOPS winds down today with $256 knockout, and the $640 main event while the SCOOP kicks off with $216 no limit 6-max and a standard $215 no limit hold'em.
SCOOP #1 is underway and looking at the structure this thing is going to take forever! 10,000 chips to start, 20 minute levels and blinds starting at 25/50, then 30/60, then 40/80, then 50/100 and so on. I'm thinking 6 or 7 hours to make the money and maybe 15-18 to win.
I registered late so I've only played 15 hands, but the tournament is an hour underway and I'm up to 13,830 after taking out someone who way overplayed a hand. I had about 9k and raised to 240 with TT. He moved all in for 4,000 which was clearly not a big hand. I snap called him, he showed me A9 and I managed to dodge an ace.
6,783 players to start, with a 1st place prize of $203,493 and the edge of the money at 1,020th place which pays $310.
Starting now (11 PT) is the Knockout on fulltilt. The FTOPS main event goes off at 3 PT and SCOOP #2 starts at 2.
SCOOP #1 is underway and looking at the structure this thing is going to take forever! 10,000 chips to start, 20 minute levels and blinds starting at 25/50, then 30/60, then 40/80, then 50/100 and so on. I'm thinking 6 or 7 hours to make the money and maybe 15-18 to win.
I registered late so I've only played 15 hands, but the tournament is an hour underway and I'm up to 13,830 after taking out someone who way overplayed a hand. I had about 9k and raised to 240 with TT. He moved all in for 4,000 which was clearly not a big hand. I snap called him, he showed me A9 and I managed to dodge an ace.
6,783 players to start, with a 1st place prize of $203,493 and the edge of the money at 1,020th place which pays $310.
Starting now (11 PT) is the Knockout on fulltilt. The FTOPS main event goes off at 3 PT and SCOOP #2 starts at 2.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The Race - Day 0
I took advantage of the fact that I'm on the west coast and played a little bit tonight on Carbon poker after the day changed over and it became May on Carbon time. Inexplicably, Carbon is on Central time! WTF is that about! When I logged on at 9 pacific ready to go I found out that I'd have to wait another hour to get started.
The good news is I played a few hundred hands and the games were fantastic. Granted it's Friday night, but all the regulars are there on Pokerstars and AP so I'm guess I'll see some of these jokers again.
I got off to a terrible start and my $1,700 Carbon roll was down to $700 at one point. But with a little luck and after I figured out that these clowns are all a bunch of whackjobs (think raising 24 or capping Q9s vs 2 players out of position), I got back to even before calling it a night.
I picked up 700 points which isn't a ton, but it's a start. Tomorrow I'm really going to put the heat on and see what I can do.
The good news is I played a few hundred hands and the games were fantastic. Granted it's Friday night, but all the regulars are there on Pokerstars and AP so I'm guess I'll see some of these jokers again.
I got off to a terrible start and my $1,700 Carbon roll was down to $700 at one point. But with a little luck and after I figured out that these clowns are all a bunch of whackjobs (think raising 24 or capping Q9s vs 2 players out of position), I got back to even before calling it a night.
I picked up 700 points which isn't a ton, but it's a start. Tomorrow I'm really going to put the heat on and see what I can do.
"The Race" Big Bucks for Me?
Carbon Poker (Carbon Poker? - yes Carbon Poker - not surprised you haven't heard of it) is running a promotion in May called "The Race." It is going to be a big deal for me.
I heard about Carbon Poker through the website that does my rakeback (rakebacknation.com) and I opened an account there in January with the hopes of getting some unqualified people to play head up against me. At the time there were very few if any limit games going on the site. But in April Carbon joined up with a bunch of poker rooms that were being run by various sports betting websites and now they have some actual traffic (those of you who read my tweets will know that I took $1,000 off two $10/$20 games there yesterday).
So what is this race all about? Well, like all poker websites carbon has a points system (and a VIP system with levels like pokerstars). The way it works is for every dollar you pay in rake you get 10 points. Pay $100 in rake, get 1,000 points.
The race is essentially 15 point milestones that each come with a cash prize. The lowest is 250 points and pays $2.50. As soon as you earn 250 points (or in other words pay $25 in rake) you get $2.50 in your account. The next level is 500. After you earn ANOTHER 500 points you get $5. Another 1,000 and you get $10 more dollars. There are actually 15 levels with the top level being 100,000 points which pays an insane $15,000.
They call it the race, because there are only a certain number of prizes at each level. The first level has 1,500, $2.50 prizes. The next level has 1,250 $5 prizes and so on.
Here is a chart with all of the levels (sorry this chart looks like shit! It didn't past very well!).
Level Points Prize Total Prizes
1 250 $2.50 1,500
2 500 $5 1,250
3 1,000 $10 1,000
4 2,000 $20 700
5 2,500 $30 600
6 3,000 $40 500
7 3,500 $70 400
8 5,000 $125 300
9 7,500 $200 200
10 10,000 $250 125
11 15,000 $750 75
12 25,000 $1,000 50
13 50,000 $2,500 25
14 75,000 $5,000 10
15 100,000 $15,000 5
So what are my chances of hitting all 15 levels? I'd say less than 1%. If you add it all up I'd have to pay $30,000 in rake to hit the top level. I've actually done that much in a month before. In fact in December 2008 on my way to Supernova Elite I paid about $45,000 in rake. But that was on pokerstars playing 6 $10/$20 games, many hours a day, 30 of 31 days that month (I lost over $10,000 that month). There just aren't that many games on Carbon poker and I don't want to torture myself like that again.
Last month I raked about $11,000 on AP and Cake combined without working too hard at it. That's kind of my baseline. I know I'm going to have to play $5/$10 games and even $3/$6 games which is going to be boring, but it should be worth it.
If I can rake $12,500 I'll pick up $5,002 in bonus money from this promotion alone. I'll also get a $1,000 bonus from rakeback nation when for raking more than $5,000 in a month and I'll get back 35% of whatever rake I pay as part of my rakeback deal. Add that up and it's $10,377!
But wait! There's more! If that wasn't enough Carbon poker has a ridiculously complex VIP system with various levels and rewards! A quick set of dirty calculations has me picking up an extra $2,000 by cashing in the points I earn and hitting other goofy ass milestones and parameters that they've set up.
So I'm going to pay $12,500 in rake and get back 99% of it. That's my plan.
If I go buck nuts and make it to $20,000 in rake which would be enough to hit level 14 of "The Race" I'll get about $23,000 in bonuses which is 115% rakeback!
Three things are going to hold me back and make it tough to do as much as I want. First and foremost is a potential lack of games. Right now there is one $10/$20 and three $3/$6 games. Nothing bigger or in between. If that line up was available 24/7 I think I could do it. Typically there has been at least one $10/$20 and one $5/$10 going the past few days with smattering of lower games. I'm hoping that I'll be able to help start more games since I'm willing to play heads up.
The second thing that's going to hold me back is money. Right now I have $1,700 in Carbon Poker and it's going to take me a few days to get more in. The only way for me to get money in there is through ewalletexpress.com. I can send money to ewallet from my bank, but I have to pay them 8.8% of whatever I deposit. Not a great option. The other way is to cashout from AP or Cake to ewallet and then send it over to carbon. I've started the process, but it's going to take a few days. So if I run bad at the start I could blow though my $1,700 and have to wait a day or two to resume play. Working for me in this regard is Carbon pays rakeback every day and I'll get the race prizes as soon as I earn them.
Third, the SCOOP. I might trim down my SCOOP schedule, but I'm still going to be playing one or two tournaments a day for two weeks.
Actually there is a 4th concern which is minute, but still there. And that it that I could have some competition for the prizes. I don't see anyway for 25 people to rake $12,500 on Carbon poker. There are hundreds who do that on pokerstars and fulltilt, but not on Carbon. I'm going to log on at minute 1 and start play to make sure I don't get jacked out of the first few prizes which I'm sure will be hit by the limiting number of players pretty quickly.
May is going to be a looooooong month, but I'm hoping it's a profitable one! Let's hope I have the mental fortitude to make this happen!
I heard about Carbon Poker through the website that does my rakeback (rakebacknation.com) and I opened an account there in January with the hopes of getting some unqualified people to play head up against me. At the time there were very few if any limit games going on the site. But in April Carbon joined up with a bunch of poker rooms that were being run by various sports betting websites and now they have some actual traffic (those of you who read my tweets will know that I took $1,000 off two $10/$20 games there yesterday).
So what is this race all about? Well, like all poker websites carbon has a points system (and a VIP system with levels like pokerstars). The way it works is for every dollar you pay in rake you get 10 points. Pay $100 in rake, get 1,000 points.
The race is essentially 15 point milestones that each come with a cash prize. The lowest is 250 points and pays $2.50. As soon as you earn 250 points (or in other words pay $25 in rake) you get $2.50 in your account. The next level is 500. After you earn ANOTHER 500 points you get $5. Another 1,000 and you get $10 more dollars. There are actually 15 levels with the top level being 100,000 points which pays an insane $15,000.
They call it the race, because there are only a certain number of prizes at each level. The first level has 1,500, $2.50 prizes. The next level has 1,250 $5 prizes and so on.
Here is a chart with all of the levels (sorry this chart looks like shit! It didn't past very well!).
Level Points Prize Total Prizes
1 250 $2.50 1,500
2 500 $5 1,250
3 1,000 $10 1,000
4 2,000 $20 700
5 2,500 $30 600
6 3,000 $40 500
7 3,500 $70 400
8 5,000 $125 300
9 7,500 $200 200
10 10,000 $250 125
11 15,000 $750 75
12 25,000 $1,000 50
13 50,000 $2,500 25
14 75,000 $5,000 10
15 100,000 $15,000 5
So what are my chances of hitting all 15 levels? I'd say less than 1%. If you add it all up I'd have to pay $30,000 in rake to hit the top level. I've actually done that much in a month before. In fact in December 2008 on my way to Supernova Elite I paid about $45,000 in rake. But that was on pokerstars playing 6 $10/$20 games, many hours a day, 30 of 31 days that month (I lost over $10,000 that month). There just aren't that many games on Carbon poker and I don't want to torture myself like that again.
Last month I raked about $11,000 on AP and Cake combined without working too hard at it. That's kind of my baseline. I know I'm going to have to play $5/$10 games and even $3/$6 games which is going to be boring, but it should be worth it.
If I can rake $12,500 I'll pick up $5,002 in bonus money from this promotion alone. I'll also get a $1,000 bonus from rakeback nation when for raking more than $5,000 in a month and I'll get back 35% of whatever rake I pay as part of my rakeback deal. Add that up and it's $10,377!
But wait! There's more! If that wasn't enough Carbon poker has a ridiculously complex VIP system with various levels and rewards! A quick set of dirty calculations has me picking up an extra $2,000 by cashing in the points I earn and hitting other goofy ass milestones and parameters that they've set up.
So I'm going to pay $12,500 in rake and get back 99% of it. That's my plan.
If I go buck nuts and make it to $20,000 in rake which would be enough to hit level 14 of "The Race" I'll get about $23,000 in bonuses which is 115% rakeback!
Three things are going to hold me back and make it tough to do as much as I want. First and foremost is a potential lack of games. Right now there is one $10/$20 and three $3/$6 games. Nothing bigger or in between. If that line up was available 24/7 I think I could do it. Typically there has been at least one $10/$20 and one $5/$10 going the past few days with smattering of lower games. I'm hoping that I'll be able to help start more games since I'm willing to play heads up.
The second thing that's going to hold me back is money. Right now I have $1,700 in Carbon Poker and it's going to take me a few days to get more in. The only way for me to get money in there is through ewalletexpress.com. I can send money to ewallet from my bank, but I have to pay them 8.8% of whatever I deposit. Not a great option. The other way is to cashout from AP or Cake to ewallet and then send it over to carbon. I've started the process, but it's going to take a few days. So if I run bad at the start I could blow though my $1,700 and have to wait a day or two to resume play. Working for me in this regard is Carbon pays rakeback every day and I'll get the race prizes as soon as I earn them.
Third, the SCOOP. I might trim down my SCOOP schedule, but I'm still going to be playing one or two tournaments a day for two weeks.
Actually there is a 4th concern which is minute, but still there. And that it that I could have some competition for the prizes. I don't see anyway for 25 people to rake $12,500 on Carbon poker. There are hundreds who do that on pokerstars and fulltilt, but not on Carbon. I'm going to log on at minute 1 and start play to make sure I don't get jacked out of the first few prizes which I'm sure will be hit by the limiting number of players pretty quickly.
May is going to be a looooooong month, but I'm hoping it's a profitable one! Let's hope I have the mental fortitude to make this happen!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Early SCOOP Schedule
I bricked in the cashout FTOPS without winning a single pot. My last hand was QQ vs AA. BOO!
After 7 tournaments my FTOPS/SCOOP Bankroll is up to $7753 from $7,500. Not great but as they say, better than a kick in the nuts!
I'm taking today off with plans of playing little if at all on Friday and Saturday so I can rest up for playing 15 days is a row.
Here the first week of my SCOOP schedule (I might add or subtract one or two tournaments). Man it looks like a lot! I copy and pasted from the web so all of the times are eastern.
May 2 13:00 NL Hold’em [6-max]$215
May 2 17:00 NL Hold’em [2-day] $215
May 3 14:00 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Rebuys] $55
May 3 17:00 FL Badugi $162
May 3 20:00 PL Omaha [Turbo, 1R1A] Low: $11 Med: $109
May 4 14:00 PL 5-Card Draw $109
May 4 17:00 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up Match Play] $162
May 5 14:00 Mixed Hold’em [6-Max] Low: $22 Med: $215
May 6 17:00 NL Hold’em [Knockout] $265
May 7 14:00 NL Hold’em [Ante Up!] $162
May 7 17:00 FL Omaha Hi-Lo $55
May 7 20:00 NL Hold’em [2X Chance, Turbo] Low: $16.50 Med: $162
May 8 14:00 NL NL Hold’em - Triple Shootout $215
May 8 17:00 PL Omaha [6-Max, Rebuys] $16.50
May 8 20:00 FL Hold’em [Turbo] Low: $22 Med: $215
Sunday is going to be a big day. On top of the two SCOOP events I've also decided to fire in FTOPS event #28 $256 NLH knockout 6-max and the $640 FTOPS main event ($3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool for that one - 1st should be over $500,000!!). Cancel all of your plans and start your laptops charging now!
After 7 tournaments my FTOPS/SCOOP Bankroll is up to $7753 from $7,500. Not great but as they say, better than a kick in the nuts!
I'm taking today off with plans of playing little if at all on Friday and Saturday so I can rest up for playing 15 days is a row.
Here the first week of my SCOOP schedule (I might add or subtract one or two tournaments). Man it looks like a lot! I copy and pasted from the web so all of the times are eastern.
May 2 13:00 NL Hold’em [6-max]$215
May 2 17:00 NL Hold’em [2-day] $215
May 3 14:00 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Rebuys] $55
May 3 17:00 FL Badugi $162
May 3 20:00 PL Omaha [Turbo, 1R1A] Low: $11 Med: $109
May 4 14:00 PL 5-Card Draw $109
May 4 17:00 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up Match Play] $162
May 5 14:00 Mixed Hold’em [6-Max] Low: $22 Med: $215
May 6 17:00 NL Hold’em [Knockout] $265
May 7 14:00 NL Hold’em [Ante Up!] $162
May 7 17:00 FL Omaha Hi-Lo $55
May 7 20:00 NL Hold’em [2X Chance, Turbo] Low: $16.50 Med: $162
May 8 14:00 NL NL Hold’em - Triple Shootout $215
May 8 17:00 PL Omaha [6-Max, Rebuys] $16.50
May 8 20:00 FL Hold’em [Turbo] Low: $22 Med: $215
Sunday is going to be a big day. On top of the two SCOOP events I've also decided to fire in FTOPS event #28 $256 NLH knockout 6-max and the $640 FTOPS main event ($3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool for that one - 1st should be over $500,000!!). Cancel all of your plans and start your laptops charging now!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
$50/$100 Beat Down
First of all thanks to whoever posted the comment on the Cashout tournament strategy. That makes perfect sense. Not sure I'll be able to resist the temptation to cashout, but I'll hold out as long as I can.
While I was playing the HORSE tournament I was also playing cash games. Normally, I find myself in the $10/$20 and $15/$30 limit games on absolute poker, but from time to time I will sometimes venture higher if conditions are right.
Yesterday I looked at a $50/$100 6-max game that had 5 players sitting at it. 3 were average, $15/$30 players who are pretty much break even, one was a solid $30/$60+ regular and the other was a total fish who I've played before and just dumps money at any limit. The seat open was to the left of the fish and I have visions of his stack pouring into mine.
On the other hand $50/$100 is a terrifying limit. It's not hard to drop 5 grand if you lose your composure and it is 5 times my normal limit. But I've been playing great lately so I decided to give it a shot. Here is a recap of a session was very short but went perfectly (the highlight was hand #14).
On hand #1 I got dealt KQ suited in the big blind. The under the gun player raised, I called and the flop came Q high. I check raised him and he three bet me. The turn was an ace and we both checked. I bet the river and he folded. A very normal pot. +$272 so far.
On hand #2 I got dealt AJ in the small blind. I three bet the cutoff, flopped an ace and won with a bet. +$469.
Hand #3 94o.
Hand #4 I raised pocket jacks and everyone folded. I avoided the temptation to say "Aw man!" and instead thought "hey I just made $75 in 2 seconds!"
Hand #5 T5o.
Hand #6 Q8o.
Hand #7 62s in the big blind. folded to a raise
Hand #8 I three bet a button raise with 77 and won with a bet on a Q high flop. +$691 for the session.
Hand #9 T5o
Hand#10 J8o
Hand #11 A7o (almost raised this one but opted to fold)
Hand #12 53o
Hand #13 62o
In hand #14 the cutoff raised and I called in the small blind with QT of hearts. The big blind came along too and the flop was 7 6 3 with one heart. The big blind and I both called a bet of $50 on the flop and the turn came down the ace of hearts giving me a flush draw. I decided to go for the check raise semibluff thinking that if my opponent bet, but didn't have an ace I could win with a checkraise. And even if I did get called I could still hit my flush. Like clock work the cutoff bet $100, I made it $200 and the big blind folded.
Not like clockwork my opponent called and the river came the 3 of diamonds. YUCK! But in a moment of sheer bravado I fired another $100 into the pot. My opponent thought and thought for what seemed like an hour and I couldn't help but explicitly think "Holy shit there's $947 out there! I have a god damn thousand bucks riding on this guy calling or folding. I'd have to be nuts playing in this game. What in the world am I doing!?"
And then he folded. "I am the king of all who play poker! Of course he was going to fold. No one would ever put me on a check raise semi bluff!" +$1,138 for the session at that point.
Hand #15 I raised with AJ and got called by the fishy player that I'd been targeting in the first place who was in the big blind. The flop came down 8 5 4 and he called my continuation bet. The turn was an ace (DING!) and he bet into me (DING DING!) I raised him and he called. The rive paired the 5 and he folded when I bet. +$1,510.
In hand #16 I raised A8o and got called by the big blind. The flop came down KK2 and he folded when I fired out $50. +$1,632.
Hand #17 J3.
Hand #18 K3.
And that was it. Maybe I should have kept going, but I'm not above a hit and run every now and then.
I have been on a killer run lately. I've had 6 winning days in a row and the worst of those was +$800. I hope I can keep it up!
While I was playing the HORSE tournament I was also playing cash games. Normally, I find myself in the $10/$20 and $15/$30 limit games on absolute poker, but from time to time I will sometimes venture higher if conditions are right.
Yesterday I looked at a $50/$100 6-max game that had 5 players sitting at it. 3 were average, $15/$30 players who are pretty much break even, one was a solid $30/$60+ regular and the other was a total fish who I've played before and just dumps money at any limit. The seat open was to the left of the fish and I have visions of his stack pouring into mine.
On the other hand $50/$100 is a terrifying limit. It's not hard to drop 5 grand if you lose your composure and it is 5 times my normal limit. But I've been playing great lately so I decided to give it a shot. Here is a recap of a session was very short but went perfectly (the highlight was hand #14).
On hand #1 I got dealt KQ suited in the big blind. The under the gun player raised, I called and the flop came Q high. I check raised him and he three bet me. The turn was an ace and we both checked. I bet the river and he folded. A very normal pot. +$272 so far.
On hand #2 I got dealt AJ in the small blind. I three bet the cutoff, flopped an ace and won with a bet. +$469.
Hand #3 94o.
Hand #4 I raised pocket jacks and everyone folded. I avoided the temptation to say "Aw man!" and instead thought "hey I just made $75 in 2 seconds!"
Hand #5 T5o.
Hand #6 Q8o.
Hand #7 62s in the big blind. folded to a raise
Hand #8 I three bet a button raise with 77 and won with a bet on a Q high flop. +$691 for the session.
Hand #9 T5o
Hand#10 J8o
Hand #11 A7o (almost raised this one but opted to fold)
Hand #12 53o
Hand #13 62o
In hand #14 the cutoff raised and I called in the small blind with QT of hearts. The big blind came along too and the flop was 7 6 3 with one heart. The big blind and I both called a bet of $50 on the flop and the turn came down the ace of hearts giving me a flush draw. I decided to go for the check raise semibluff thinking that if my opponent bet, but didn't have an ace I could win with a checkraise. And even if I did get called I could still hit my flush. Like clock work the cutoff bet $100, I made it $200 and the big blind folded.
Not like clockwork my opponent called and the river came the 3 of diamonds. YUCK! But in a moment of sheer bravado I fired another $100 into the pot. My opponent thought and thought for what seemed like an hour and I couldn't help but explicitly think "Holy shit there's $947 out there! I have a god damn thousand bucks riding on this guy calling or folding. I'd have to be nuts playing in this game. What in the world am I doing!?"
And then he folded. "I am the king of all who play poker! Of course he was going to fold. No one would ever put me on a check raise semi bluff!" +$1,138 for the session at that point.
Hand #15 I raised with AJ and got called by the fishy player that I'd been targeting in the first place who was in the big blind. The flop came down 8 5 4 and he called my continuation bet. The turn was an ace (DING!) and he bet into me (DING DING!) I raised him and he called. The rive paired the 5 and he folded when I bet. +$1,510.
In hand #16 I raised A8o and got called by the big blind. The flop came down KK2 and he folded when I fired out $50. +$1,632.
Hand #17 J3.
Hand #18 K3.
And that was it. Maybe I should have kept going, but I'm not above a hit and run every now and then.
I have been on a killer run lately. I've had 6 winning days in a row and the worst of those was +$800. I hope I can keep it up!
Two Tournaments Today
Event #16 $216 7-game mixed games is underway. This is a mix of all the HORSE games plus NL hold'em and PLO.
At 3 I have $216 "cashout." I've never played a cashout tournament before, but here is how I understand that it works. Of my buy in $16 goes to the house, $100 goes to the main prize pool and $100 goes to the cashout prize pool. At any time, but only one time, during the tournament you can "cashout" half of your chips and get paid for their value. For example. If you start the tournament with 5,000 chips on hand 1 you could sell off 2,500 chips for $100 and be left with 2,500 chips. Or if you had 20,000 you could sell off half for $400 and be left with 10,000. I'm not sure what the optimal strategy is, but I hope I'll know the time to cashout when I see it.
At 3 I have $216 "cashout." I've never played a cashout tournament before, but here is how I understand that it works. Of my buy in $16 goes to the house, $100 goes to the main prize pool and $100 goes to the cashout prize pool. At any time, but only one time, during the tournament you can "cashout" half of your chips and get paid for their value. For example. If you start the tournament with 5,000 chips on hand 1 you could sell off 2,500 chips for $100 and be left with 2,500 chips. Or if you had 20,000 you could sell off half for $400 and be left with 10,000. I'm not sure what the optimal strategy is, but I hope I'll know the time to cashout when I see it.
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
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!
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.
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.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Friday, April 23, 2010
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.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
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!
Hopefully I can keep this new winning streak alive tomorrow!
Friday, February 12, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, January 25, 2010
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.
Tomorrow I have $215 HORSE which might be my last event if I put up another brick.
Friday, January 22, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, January 15, 2010
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!
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!
Friday, January 01, 2010
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!?!)
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!?!)
Thursday, December 24, 2009
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!
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!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, December 14, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, December 11, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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. :(
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. :(
Thursday, November 05, 2009
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.
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.
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