Hello, this is Jen!
Dave wanted me to put a post up to let you know that he ended up not playing in today's event. He went to the Rio yesterday to sign up and apparently the line to register was hours long and not moving at all. He decided he would rather just get this morning around 8 and sign up then. He woke up this morning feeling awake at 4 for no particular reason, so he headed back over to the Rio planning on signing up and then coming back to the MGM for a few more hours of sleep before the tournament. When he got there he found out the wait would be 3-4 hours. Wisely he decided that he would not be playing his best poker after getting so little sleep and standing in line all night long, so he is skipping today's event. He's hoping they can work out whatever bugs they're having and he's going to return this evening or early tomorrow to sign up for the next event.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
WSOP Preview Extravaganza!
On Thursday May 31st I'll once again be heading back to Vegas to take a shot at a high six figure pay day in the World Series of Poker! As most of you know last years WSOP was the reason that I started this blog and was a collosal, monumental, extra large failure. I played 10 events, and while I like how I stacked up against the competition in most of them, I got hosed in one way or another in all of them.
Even in the one event in which I made the money I got jobbed. On my final hand I went broke when the player in the big blind (Michael Mizrachi AKA The Grinder supposedly one of the top 25 best players in the world) called wiht AJ after the player on the button moved all in with 77 and I moved all in over the top with KK. Even before the cards were turned over he said he knew he was behind, but was "gambling" in an attempt to win a big pot. Of course he flopped an ace and busted both me and the other guy. And then what did he do? He went broke on the very next hand! I had to stand there in line to get paid with him standing right behind me for ten minutes!
I'm getting all worked up here so before I get too carried away and start devising a plan to pie Mizrachi in the face I'll get on to this years preview and leave the past in the past. This year I'm only playing in 3 events and here's the scoop on all three.
June 2nd Event #3 $1,500 No Limit Hold 'em
Other than the main event this should be the event with the most newcomers and inexperienced players since it's got a small buy in by WSOP standards and is the first event other than the employees event and a $5,000 mixed limit/no limit event event. Last year there were 2,776 entrants and there would have been more if the room was bigger. I finished somewhere in the range of 2,100th place when I lost with AA against KQ (an 87% favorite preflop). I expect this year will have a similar turnout and hopefully better results for me. Here is a list of the top 20 finishers and their prizes.
1 Brandon Cantu (BC, Canada) $757,839
2 Phong Ly (CA, USA) $416,816
3 Drew Rubin (FL, USA) $226,597
4 Lee Padilla (CA, USA) $176,579
5 Brent Roberts (NY, USA) $151,570
6 Don Zewin (NV, USA) $126,940
7 Ron Stanley (NV, USA) $107,614
8 Mark Swartz (AZ, USA) $88,668
9 Carlos Mortensen (NV, USA) $71,617
10 Tom Nguyen (NV, USA) $56,081
11 Jennifer Harman (NV, USA) $51,155
12 Jack Rosenfeldt (CA, USA) $46,987
13 Ali Eslami (CA, USA) $43,197
14 Chad Burum (CA, USA) $39,408
15 David Baker (TX, USA) $35,619
16 Adam Smith (TX, USA) $31,830
17 Steve Hohn (KS, USA) $28,040
18 Stuart Krasney (CA, USA) $24,251
19 Jorge Walker (CA, USA) $20,462
20 Paul Smith (CA, USA) $20,462
June 3rd Event #4 $1,500 Pot Limit Hold 'em
If you were betting on which tournament I was most likely to make the money in this would be the smart one to choose since both of my past WSOP cashes have been in pot limit events. I'm not sure why that's been the case since pot limit and no limit are almost the same once you get well into the tournament and the blinds get big, but maybe it will give me a little extra confidence when I sit down to play. Last year there were 1,102 entrants in this event and I finihsed 58th. Other than the money, the highlight of this event last year was I spent the entirety of day 1 playing at the same table with former world champ and super nice guy Chris Fergeson. I don't know why people dislike pot limit and love no limit, but I'm sure this event will have half the turnout of Event #3. Here are the top 9 finishers and their prizes from last year.
1 Rafe Furst $345,984
2 Rocky Enciso $180,508
3 Eric "Rizen" Lynch $104,544
4 George Bronstein $75,212
5 Burt Boutin $60,169
6 Can Kim Hua $52,648
7 Richard Chase $45,127
8 John Juanda $37,606
9 Alan Gilbert $33,845
June 4th Event #6 $1,500 Limit Hold 'em
The best thing about limit tournaments is you can't go broke on one hand early in the tournament. The first few hours can be a little boring since the betting limits are relatively small and insignificant, but hopefully it will give me a chance to get a feel for my opponents without much on the line. Last year there were 1,068 entrants in this event and I didn't play because I was in day 2 of the pot limit event. Here are the top 9 finishers and their prizes.
1 Kianoush Abolfathi $335,289
2 Eric Buchman $174,938
3 Josh Schlein $101,318
4 Michele Lewis $72,891
5 Vipul Kothari $58,313
6 Hank Sparks $51,029
7 Patrick Maloney $43,735
8 Lars Hansen $36,446
9 Matt Welsby $32,801
All three of these events are three day events. The first day you play from noon until roughly 2 a.m. with 20 minute breaks every 2 hours and a 1 hour break for dinner in the 6:45 p.m. range. At the end of day 1 all of the remaining players will be in the money. On day 2 you start at 2 p.m. and play until only the top 9 players remain who then come back the next day for the conclusion.
Unlike last year when I needed to go very deep in at least one event or make the money in 3 or 4 consider the trip a success, this year just making the money in one event will make the trip a success. Also in contrast to last year, I'm not feeling any pressure at all. The money involved is a small fraction of what was at stake last year and as per usual when I go into a big buy in event the money has already been set aside and it won't be a big deal if none of it comes back. Wish me luck and I'll do my best to update the blog daily with results from Vegas.
Even in the one event in which I made the money I got jobbed. On my final hand I went broke when the player in the big blind (Michael Mizrachi AKA The Grinder supposedly one of the top 25 best players in the world) called wiht AJ after the player on the button moved all in with 77 and I moved all in over the top with KK. Even before the cards were turned over he said he knew he was behind, but was "gambling" in an attempt to win a big pot. Of course he flopped an ace and busted both me and the other guy. And then what did he do? He went broke on the very next hand! I had to stand there in line to get paid with him standing right behind me for ten minutes!
I'm getting all worked up here so before I get too carried away and start devising a plan to pie Mizrachi in the face I'll get on to this years preview and leave the past in the past. This year I'm only playing in 3 events and here's the scoop on all three.
June 2nd Event #3 $1,500 No Limit Hold 'em
Other than the main event this should be the event with the most newcomers and inexperienced players since it's got a small buy in by WSOP standards and is the first event other than the employees event and a $5,000 mixed limit/no limit event event. Last year there were 2,776 entrants and there would have been more if the room was bigger. I finished somewhere in the range of 2,100th place when I lost with AA against KQ (an 87% favorite preflop). I expect this year will have a similar turnout and hopefully better results for me. Here is a list of the top 20 finishers and their prizes.
1 Brandon Cantu (BC, Canada) $757,839
2 Phong Ly (CA, USA) $416,816
3 Drew Rubin (FL, USA) $226,597
4 Lee Padilla (CA, USA) $176,579
5 Brent Roberts (NY, USA) $151,570
6 Don Zewin (NV, USA) $126,940
7 Ron Stanley (NV, USA) $107,614
8 Mark Swartz (AZ, USA) $88,668
9 Carlos Mortensen (NV, USA) $71,617
10 Tom Nguyen (NV, USA) $56,081
11 Jennifer Harman (NV, USA) $51,155
12 Jack Rosenfeldt (CA, USA) $46,987
13 Ali Eslami (CA, USA) $43,197
14 Chad Burum (CA, USA) $39,408
15 David Baker (TX, USA) $35,619
16 Adam Smith (TX, USA) $31,830
17 Steve Hohn (KS, USA) $28,040
18 Stuart Krasney (CA, USA) $24,251
19 Jorge Walker (CA, USA) $20,462
20 Paul Smith (CA, USA) $20,462
June 3rd Event #4 $1,500 Pot Limit Hold 'em
If you were betting on which tournament I was most likely to make the money in this would be the smart one to choose since both of my past WSOP cashes have been in pot limit events. I'm not sure why that's been the case since pot limit and no limit are almost the same once you get well into the tournament and the blinds get big, but maybe it will give me a little extra confidence when I sit down to play. Last year there were 1,102 entrants in this event and I finihsed 58th. Other than the money, the highlight of this event last year was I spent the entirety of day 1 playing at the same table with former world champ and super nice guy Chris Fergeson. I don't know why people dislike pot limit and love no limit, but I'm sure this event will have half the turnout of Event #3. Here are the top 9 finishers and their prizes from last year.
1 Rafe Furst $345,984
2 Rocky Enciso $180,508
3 Eric "Rizen" Lynch $104,544
4 George Bronstein $75,212
5 Burt Boutin $60,169
6 Can Kim Hua $52,648
7 Richard Chase $45,127
8 John Juanda $37,606
9 Alan Gilbert $33,845
June 4th Event #6 $1,500 Limit Hold 'em
The best thing about limit tournaments is you can't go broke on one hand early in the tournament. The first few hours can be a little boring since the betting limits are relatively small and insignificant, but hopefully it will give me a chance to get a feel for my opponents without much on the line. Last year there were 1,068 entrants in this event and I didn't play because I was in day 2 of the pot limit event. Here are the top 9 finishers and their prizes.
1 Kianoush Abolfathi $335,289
2 Eric Buchman $174,938
3 Josh Schlein $101,318
4 Michele Lewis $72,891
5 Vipul Kothari $58,313
6 Hank Sparks $51,029
7 Patrick Maloney $43,735
8 Lars Hansen $36,446
9 Matt Welsby $32,801
All three of these events are three day events. The first day you play from noon until roughly 2 a.m. with 20 minute breaks every 2 hours and a 1 hour break for dinner in the 6:45 p.m. range. At the end of day 1 all of the remaining players will be in the money. On day 2 you start at 2 p.m. and play until only the top 9 players remain who then come back the next day for the conclusion.
Unlike last year when I needed to go very deep in at least one event or make the money in 3 or 4 consider the trip a success, this year just making the money in one event will make the trip a success. Also in contrast to last year, I'm not feeling any pressure at all. The money involved is a small fraction of what was at stake last year and as per usual when I go into a big buy in event the money has already been set aside and it won't be a big deal if none of it comes back. Wish me luck and I'll do my best to update the blog daily with results from Vegas.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
What a Difference a Day Makes
On Saturday I had my worst day of the year so far. I took Sunday off and on Monday I got back all but $11 of the money I lost on Saturday. I've noticed that I have a much more difficult time with the weekend players. I am certain that the weekend players are worse and you'd think that would make them easier to beat, but in practice that hasn't been the case for me.
I have a few theories as to why that might be. I think the main problem is that two pillars of my game are bluffing at a ton of small pots and avoiding putting in all of my chips in close situations. The weekend players have a tendency to call with much worse hands so those small pots that I'd normally win aren't coming my way. Furthermore players who aren't very good, but have some experience have a tendency to make big bluffs more often. Consequently I'm faced with more tough spots where I have to make a decision for more chips than I'd like to.
Another problem is that one of my strengths is playing hands in a certain way and betting specific amounts in order to convince my opponent(s) that I have a specific hand that is different from what I actually have. The regular weekday morning and afternoon players are pretty good (but not great) so they spend time thinking specifically about what I have. It's possible to convince them I have a perticular good hand when I don't and a bad hand when I have a good one. Conversely, you can't make a bad player think you've got something different than you do because they're not thinking that hard. They're mostly focused on what they have and sometimes it doesn't really matter what you do.
Or I'm just running bad on the weekends. It's really difficult to tell.
Meanwhile the pokerstars double frequent player point (FPP) promotion ends today. I have mixed emotions about the ending of this promo. I'm sad that after a week and half of piling up FPP's at an insane rate, I'll have to go back to generating them at a slower pace. But I'm happy that I can take a guilt free day off in the middle of the week.
After a sweet day yesterday and another good one today the last 10 days have been a solid success. I didn't make it to my upper end goal of 30,000 hands in 10 days, but I came within a whisper of my secondary goal of 25,000 hands. If I didn't get my doors blown off on Saturday I would have played on Sunday and finished in the 28,000 hand range, so I feel ok about how hard I worked.
More importantly I used the FPP's I earned in the past 10 days alone to purchase an entry in a $1,500 WSOP event! The rewards for playing at pokerstars are hands down the best of any poker site. For playing the same amount on another site I'd probably have enough points for a sweatshirt and a box of golf balls. You can keep that shit! Give me the WSOP seat baby!
My goals for the month are going great. Since I worked so hard this past week and a half I've already played 45,000 hands this month. Out of the remaining 9 days in the month I'll only have to work 5 to make my goal of 60,000. Also the hands that I've played have been quality hands. If the month ended today I'd be ahead $1,200 more than any other month this year and if I can keep the pace up I'll have about the 6th best month I've had in the past 4 years.
Also a reminder that I'm off to Vegas for 5 days of WSOP and general merriment on May 31st. Look out for a WSOP preview extravoganza the like of which you've never seen! Not really. In actuality it will be a brief preview, but look out for it anyway!
I have a few theories as to why that might be. I think the main problem is that two pillars of my game are bluffing at a ton of small pots and avoiding putting in all of my chips in close situations. The weekend players have a tendency to call with much worse hands so those small pots that I'd normally win aren't coming my way. Furthermore players who aren't very good, but have some experience have a tendency to make big bluffs more often. Consequently I'm faced with more tough spots where I have to make a decision for more chips than I'd like to.
Another problem is that one of my strengths is playing hands in a certain way and betting specific amounts in order to convince my opponent(s) that I have a specific hand that is different from what I actually have. The regular weekday morning and afternoon players are pretty good (but not great) so they spend time thinking specifically about what I have. It's possible to convince them I have a perticular good hand when I don't and a bad hand when I have a good one. Conversely, you can't make a bad player think you've got something different than you do because they're not thinking that hard. They're mostly focused on what they have and sometimes it doesn't really matter what you do.
Or I'm just running bad on the weekends. It's really difficult to tell.
Meanwhile the pokerstars double frequent player point (FPP) promotion ends today. I have mixed emotions about the ending of this promo. I'm sad that after a week and half of piling up FPP's at an insane rate, I'll have to go back to generating them at a slower pace. But I'm happy that I can take a guilt free day off in the middle of the week.
After a sweet day yesterday and another good one today the last 10 days have been a solid success. I didn't make it to my upper end goal of 30,000 hands in 10 days, but I came within a whisper of my secondary goal of 25,000 hands. If I didn't get my doors blown off on Saturday I would have played on Sunday and finished in the 28,000 hand range, so I feel ok about how hard I worked.
More importantly I used the FPP's I earned in the past 10 days alone to purchase an entry in a $1,500 WSOP event! The rewards for playing at pokerstars are hands down the best of any poker site. For playing the same amount on another site I'd probably have enough points for a sweatshirt and a box of golf balls. You can keep that shit! Give me the WSOP seat baby!
My goals for the month are going great. Since I worked so hard this past week and a half I've already played 45,000 hands this month. Out of the remaining 9 days in the month I'll only have to work 5 to make my goal of 60,000. Also the hands that I've played have been quality hands. If the month ended today I'd be ahead $1,200 more than any other month this year and if I can keep the pace up I'll have about the 6th best month I've had in the past 4 years.
Also a reminder that I'm off to Vegas for 5 days of WSOP and general merriment on May 31st. Look out for a WSOP preview extravoganza the like of which you've never seen! Not really. In actuality it will be a brief preview, but look out for it anyway!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
10 Billion Hand Bust
The 10 billionth hand on pokerstars came and went today. The hand was dealt on a 6 handed 1 cent/2 cent no limit table which is the smallest possible limit. The hand was dealt and then frozen so an announcement could be made and other players could come watch. After ten minutes of the support personnel making sure that everyone knew what was going on and saying MANY, MANY times that the winner of the hand would get $100,000 they let the action play out.
Then I got to witness without a doubt THE WORST PLAY IN POKER HISTORY! Two people folded! Let me say it again. TWO PEOPLE FOLDED! HELLO! The winner of the hand gets a hundred grand and two of the six players at the table folded before the flop! I can't stop saying it, TWO OF THE PLAYERS AT THE TABLE FOLDED! One had about $5 and the other about $1.75 and they must not have had a brain cell between them. Everyone at the table got $10,000 and a $5,000 entry into the WCOOP main event. They'll probably go blow it all on shiny objects or DVDs of the movie Catwoman or whatever it is that morons buy. How in the world could you be so oblivious? Incredible.
So who won the hand? The player in the big blind who started the hand with 82 cents (82 cents! Jesus!) and had no idea what was happening at the beginning of the hand. She clearly didn't know about the promotion, but managed to figure it out after support told the players 75 times that the winner would get $100,000. She got dealt 83 of clubs and made a flush to win the biggest pot in the history of 1 cent/2 cent blinds poker. Congratulations to Justine0003 who I will envy for a long, long time.
I managed to be playing during about 30 of 100 smaller milestone hands and not only were none of them were dealt on one of my tables, but none were dealt on any $1/$2 or $2/$4 blinds NL games period.
Meanwhile I had my worst day of the year today. A miserable, miserable day where I managed to combine the forces of bad play on my part and absolutely horrible luck. I couldn't do anything right today. It felt like I made the minimum on the winning hands I had, lost the maximum on the big losers I had, bluffed into made hands (I actually moved all in against a Royal Flush yesterday) and checked into hands I could have won by bluffing. And I also got TOTALLY SCREWED over and over. I kept getting pocket aces or kings and either winning $6 or losing $100.
I'd intended to play for the next three days to take advantage of the remaining days of the double FPP promotion, but as a general rule if you have you're worst day in 6 months (I lost a few more dollars on December 3rd 2006 than I did today) you need a day off. Also I've worked 7 days straight and 17 of the past 19 so I can't feel like too much of a slacker. What a terrible depressing day!
On Monday I'm going to try something that I've been wanting to try for a while. I'm going to play as many hands in one day as you would get dealt in a month playing full time in person. It's 5,600 hands which should take me 12-13 hours of actual playing time. There's a fair chance that my brain might shut down about 3/4 of the way through because while I've played 12 hours in a day before it was usually 12 hours of 1 game in person with breaks or 12 hours of 2 or 3 big multitable tournaments online so the effort wasn't as intensive. If I can make it to 5,880 that would be the same as playing 24 hours a day for a week without missing a hand. I'll let you know what happens.
Then I got to witness without a doubt THE WORST PLAY IN POKER HISTORY! Two people folded! Let me say it again. TWO PEOPLE FOLDED! HELLO! The winner of the hand gets a hundred grand and two of the six players at the table folded before the flop! I can't stop saying it, TWO OF THE PLAYERS AT THE TABLE FOLDED! One had about $5 and the other about $1.75 and they must not have had a brain cell between them. Everyone at the table got $10,000 and a $5,000 entry into the WCOOP main event. They'll probably go blow it all on shiny objects or DVDs of the movie Catwoman or whatever it is that morons buy. How in the world could you be so oblivious? Incredible.
So who won the hand? The player in the big blind who started the hand with 82 cents (82 cents! Jesus!) and had no idea what was happening at the beginning of the hand. She clearly didn't know about the promotion, but managed to figure it out after support told the players 75 times that the winner would get $100,000. She got dealt 83 of clubs and made a flush to win the biggest pot in the history of 1 cent/2 cent blinds poker. Congratulations to Justine0003 who I will envy for a long, long time.
I managed to be playing during about 30 of 100 smaller milestone hands and not only were none of them were dealt on one of my tables, but none were dealt on any $1/$2 or $2/$4 blinds NL games period.
Meanwhile I had my worst day of the year today. A miserable, miserable day where I managed to combine the forces of bad play on my part and absolutely horrible luck. I couldn't do anything right today. It felt like I made the minimum on the winning hands I had, lost the maximum on the big losers I had, bluffed into made hands (I actually moved all in against a Royal Flush yesterday) and checked into hands I could have won by bluffing. And I also got TOTALLY SCREWED over and over. I kept getting pocket aces or kings and either winning $6 or losing $100.
I'd intended to play for the next three days to take advantage of the remaining days of the double FPP promotion, but as a general rule if you have you're worst day in 6 months (I lost a few more dollars on December 3rd 2006 than I did today) you need a day off. Also I've worked 7 days straight and 17 of the past 19 so I can't feel like too much of a slacker. What a terrible depressing day!
On Monday I'm going to try something that I've been wanting to try for a while. I'm going to play as many hands in one day as you would get dealt in a month playing full time in person. It's 5,600 hands which should take me 12-13 hours of actual playing time. There's a fair chance that my brain might shut down about 3/4 of the way through because while I've played 12 hours in a day before it was usually 12 hours of 1 game in person with breaks or 12 hours of 2 or 3 big multitable tournaments online so the effort wasn't as intensive. If I can make it to 5,880 that would be the same as playing 24 hours a day for a week without missing a hand. I'll let you know what happens.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Mental Toughness Required
Playing poker for a living is definitely an occupation that requires substantial mental toughness. Sometimes it feels like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. Out of nowhere all of your bluffs are getting called, your big hands are running into bigger hands and none of your drawing hands are getting there. You see good hand after good hand get squashed and you think to yourself, "What happened to my money? If only this had gone differently and I hadn't done that."
I can tell you from 7 years of experience (both my own and from watching other people) that the natural reaction is to go completely nuts. Your heart tells you "Get in there! You better win this pot now! You can't wait for the next hand you have to win this one!" Some players listen and play every hand as aggressively as possible and take wild chances in a desperate effort to get that money back. Others manage to ignore their heart and listen to their brain which is telling them "Stay calm. Wait for a good hand. It wasn't that much money. IT'S OK! DON'T PLAY THAT HAND YOU IDIOT! FOLD! FOLD! FOLD!"
Hanging on to your composure when you start losing pot after pot is like charging into the ocean trying to make it to a boat. If the waves are small and spaced out you can make it, but if they are huge and come one after another then even the strongest person will be repelled.
Similarly, losing a few pots close together isn't hard to handle if they are small and losing a big pot here and there is ok too. It's just part of the game. But if you lose several big pots in quick succession wiping out days worth of profit it's almost impossible to stay totally calm and think rationally.
The trick is being able to let that emotional response pass and get back to playing your best as quickly as possible. It might take 5 minutes or 5 hours or 5 days depending on the amount of money involved and the way things went down. Part of being a pro is getting back on track right away.
Lately I've been trying to focus on having the mental toughness to bounce back as quickly as possible. Luckily for me no matter what happens or how upset I am, my absolute worst is still pretty good. While I'm not sure how good my "A game" is, I'll take my "F game" against almost anyone's.
Unfortunately I had the chance to work on my mental toughness today under extreme circumstances. I was in 6 NL cash games and I lost all of my chips in 4 of them in the span of about 3 minutes. First I lost $200 when I made a straight on the turn at the same time that another player made a flush. He made a huge bet and I decided that there was about a 45% chance he had a flush and a 55% chance that he didn't. I was wrong and lost. Just after, I picked up QQ and lost $200 to a player with AA. Then I lost $100 with AQ to QJ when the flop came down Q J 5 and I didn't improve.
At this point I was not happy. Not only did I just blow through $500 in no time at all, if I was playing really great I probably could have saved some of that money. Of course they were all tough spots and I certainly didn't make any big mistakes, but it wasn't like there was no way I could have gotten away from those hands and I was doubting my decisions.
Maybe 45 seconds later I picked up JJ and I thought to myself "Pleeeease make this one easy on me." Someone open raised the minimum (to $8), another player called, I made it $24 and they both called. The flop came down J 7 3 with 2 hearts. Ah Ha! I bet $40 and one of the other players moved all in. Not only did I have the best possible hand, but no matter what my opponent had I was at least 75% to win and most likely they were either a 10 to 1 underdog or drawing dead. I guessed I was up against a flush draw or an over pair so when the turn came an 8 and the river came a 9 I was sure I'd won. For a fraction of a second I considered that they might have pocket tens, but then I realized that made no sense. When my opponent turned over A 10 of hearts and took the pot it felt like I'd been punched in the chest. Another $400 pot headed the wrong way.
That money isn't that important and I've lost literally thousands of $400 pots in my lifetime, but man, losing that pot right after those other three really hit me hard.
Then I thought "This is actually great, because it gives me a chance to work on my mental toughness!" If you believe that I have some magic beans I can sell you for only 11 easy payments of $49.95.
Happily, I did manage to have a total luck 180 right away. While the turn and river were coming out in the hand with the jacks I got dealt AK on another table. I raised, flopped an ace and some doofus with 89 which was no pair, no draw, decided to blow all in and I doubled up. Over the next 300 hands or so I managed to pick up 5 or 6 medium pots and finally one more big one (along with the standard compliment of little ones). After the big one I saw I'd recovered $685 of the $700 I blew through. At that point I promptly called it a day feeling like I'd been battered by enough waves for one day.
I'm still on target for my May goals. I've played 33,000 of my 60,000 hands for the month and I'm only slightly off the pace of playing 30,000 hands in the 10 days of the pokerstars double FPP promotion. I've had 9 winning days and 5 losing days so far, but my biggest losing day was under $300 and I've had three winning days in the plus $1,000 range.
There's never a bad time for a good streak, but since I'm going to need an extra $2,500 or so for my trip to the WSOP and Jen is going to be too pregnant to work right around the corner this has been good timing.
I can tell you from 7 years of experience (both my own and from watching other people) that the natural reaction is to go completely nuts. Your heart tells you "Get in there! You better win this pot now! You can't wait for the next hand you have to win this one!" Some players listen and play every hand as aggressively as possible and take wild chances in a desperate effort to get that money back. Others manage to ignore their heart and listen to their brain which is telling them "Stay calm. Wait for a good hand. It wasn't that much money. IT'S OK! DON'T PLAY THAT HAND YOU IDIOT! FOLD! FOLD! FOLD!"
Hanging on to your composure when you start losing pot after pot is like charging into the ocean trying to make it to a boat. If the waves are small and spaced out you can make it, but if they are huge and come one after another then even the strongest person will be repelled.
Similarly, losing a few pots close together isn't hard to handle if they are small and losing a big pot here and there is ok too. It's just part of the game. But if you lose several big pots in quick succession wiping out days worth of profit it's almost impossible to stay totally calm and think rationally.
The trick is being able to let that emotional response pass and get back to playing your best as quickly as possible. It might take 5 minutes or 5 hours or 5 days depending on the amount of money involved and the way things went down. Part of being a pro is getting back on track right away.
Lately I've been trying to focus on having the mental toughness to bounce back as quickly as possible. Luckily for me no matter what happens or how upset I am, my absolute worst is still pretty good. While I'm not sure how good my "A game" is, I'll take my "F game" against almost anyone's.
Unfortunately I had the chance to work on my mental toughness today under extreme circumstances. I was in 6 NL cash games and I lost all of my chips in 4 of them in the span of about 3 minutes. First I lost $200 when I made a straight on the turn at the same time that another player made a flush. He made a huge bet and I decided that there was about a 45% chance he had a flush and a 55% chance that he didn't. I was wrong and lost. Just after, I picked up QQ and lost $200 to a player with AA. Then I lost $100 with AQ to QJ when the flop came down Q J 5 and I didn't improve.
At this point I was not happy. Not only did I just blow through $500 in no time at all, if I was playing really great I probably could have saved some of that money. Of course they were all tough spots and I certainly didn't make any big mistakes, but it wasn't like there was no way I could have gotten away from those hands and I was doubting my decisions.
Maybe 45 seconds later I picked up JJ and I thought to myself "Pleeeease make this one easy on me." Someone open raised the minimum (to $8), another player called, I made it $24 and they both called. The flop came down J 7 3 with 2 hearts. Ah Ha! I bet $40 and one of the other players moved all in. Not only did I have the best possible hand, but no matter what my opponent had I was at least 75% to win and most likely they were either a 10 to 1 underdog or drawing dead. I guessed I was up against a flush draw or an over pair so when the turn came an 8 and the river came a 9 I was sure I'd won. For a fraction of a second I considered that they might have pocket tens, but then I realized that made no sense. When my opponent turned over A 10 of hearts and took the pot it felt like I'd been punched in the chest. Another $400 pot headed the wrong way.
That money isn't that important and I've lost literally thousands of $400 pots in my lifetime, but man, losing that pot right after those other three really hit me hard.
Then I thought "This is actually great, because it gives me a chance to work on my mental toughness!" If you believe that I have some magic beans I can sell you for only 11 easy payments of $49.95.
Happily, I did manage to have a total luck 180 right away. While the turn and river were coming out in the hand with the jacks I got dealt AK on another table. I raised, flopped an ace and some doofus with 89 which was no pair, no draw, decided to blow all in and I doubled up. Over the next 300 hands or so I managed to pick up 5 or 6 medium pots and finally one more big one (along with the standard compliment of little ones). After the big one I saw I'd recovered $685 of the $700 I blew through. At that point I promptly called it a day feeling like I'd been battered by enough waves for one day.
I'm still on target for my May goals. I've played 33,000 of my 60,000 hands for the month and I'm only slightly off the pace of playing 30,000 hands in the 10 days of the pokerstars double FPP promotion. I've had 9 winning days and 5 losing days so far, but my biggest losing day was under $300 and I've had three winning days in the plus $1,000 range.
There's never a bad time for a good streak, but since I'm going to need an extra $2,500 or so for my trip to the WSOP and Jen is going to be too pregnant to work right around the corner this has been good timing.
Friday, May 11, 2007
A little gift from pokerstars
Pokerstars made an announcement that they are going to have a bit of a blowout as they approach the 10 billionth hand dealt in their history. When I first started playing online poker in 2004 Party Poker who was the big dog at the time had dealt more hands than any other site. In the five years that they'd been in operation they'd dealt 250 million. Pokerstars expects to deal half that many in the next 10 days and has dealt over 5 billion hands in the last year. When they say poker boom the mean BOOOOOOOOM!!!
So what are they giving away? The lowliest thing is they're adding a few thousand dollars in prize money to about a dozen daily tournaments from now until May 22nd. I'm not going to bother squabbling over that money.
More significantly they are adding $100,000 to the prize pool of the $215 buy in "Sunday Warm up" and $250,000 to the prize pool of the $215 buy in "Sunday Million." The first usually draws about 2,000 players and the second usually draws about 7,000 (and I expect they'll get about 50% more players than usual) so the added money isn't that significant.
In my estimation there will be about $50 in extra equity total if I put up $430 and played both tournaments. However this added money should attract players that normally wouldn't play in these tournaments and for many of them it will have no business playing in a $215 tournament. So on top of the small added bonus money, the fact that the field will be much weaker than usual should add some significant additional value.
Another thing which is always nice is they're offering a 25% deposit bonus on deposits up to $600. For me this is a free $150!
The most exciting thing for some players is they are giving away money to the players that are dealt in on every millionth hand starting with #9,900,000,000. The amount varies depending on the size of the game you're playing in as well as your VIP level and the winner of the actual hand gets much more. The lowest amount would be if you had no VIP status and were playing in micro level games. The winner of the hand would get $250 and the other players dealt in all get $100. I won't go through all the permutations, but the bottom line is for me I'll get paid $2,400 if I win one of those 100 hands and $900 if I'm just dealt in. That would be sweet!
No one knows which tables the key hands will be dealt on, but you can see the hand counter going up so I'm going to make sure I'm playing in 10 games when the key hands are going to be dealt as often as I can. Obviously I won't be playing when all 100 hands get dealt since one is going to happen about every 2.5 hours for the next 10 days or so, but I might be able to at least be logged on and playing when 50 of them are dealt. I have no idea what kind of dollar value to put on this part of the promotion, but I sure will be fired up if I get any piece of that money.
Not surprisingly the ten billionth hand will be much more significant. Getting dealt in is worth $10,000 plus a $5,000 seat in the WCOOP main event and winning the hand is worth $100,000! You can bet that when that hand gets dealt pokerstars will have more players logged on than they ever have before. I will personally be in more games than I ever have before. I'm taking my monitor to max resolution and shrinking those games down as much as I can to give myself the best chance.
When I first started thinking about this I thought "Ha ha! I'll have about a 1 in 1,000 chance at hitting this one!" But I think it's actually much better than that. Pokerstars usually has around 10,000 games going, but the majority of them are play money games and some more are multitable tournaments which don't qualify (only SNG's tables and cash game tables count) I'm going to estimate that for the big hand there will around 2500 qualifying tables and if I'm in 15 games that will give me a 1 in 166 shot of being in the big hand. For the lesser earlier hands there might be as few as 500 qualifying tables if it's late at night meaning I'll have a 1 in 50 shot of hitting each one if I'm in 10 games each time. All of a sudden I'm a little more excited about this part of the promotion.
All that stuff is great, but by far the best thing for me is DOUBLE FPP's for 10 days! Normally I get about $32 in FPP's for every 1,000 hands I play. Between now and May 22nd I'll be getting $64 for every 1,000 hands. If I bust my hump I think I can play between 25,000 and 30,000 hands between now and the 22nd. Which means this part of the promotion will be worth close to an extra $1,000 for me. Thanks pokerstars!
So what are they giving away? The lowliest thing is they're adding a few thousand dollars in prize money to about a dozen daily tournaments from now until May 22nd. I'm not going to bother squabbling over that money.
More significantly they are adding $100,000 to the prize pool of the $215 buy in "Sunday Warm up" and $250,000 to the prize pool of the $215 buy in "Sunday Million." The first usually draws about 2,000 players and the second usually draws about 7,000 (and I expect they'll get about 50% more players than usual) so the added money isn't that significant.
In my estimation there will be about $50 in extra equity total if I put up $430 and played both tournaments. However this added money should attract players that normally wouldn't play in these tournaments and for many of them it will have no business playing in a $215 tournament. So on top of the small added bonus money, the fact that the field will be much weaker than usual should add some significant additional value.
Another thing which is always nice is they're offering a 25% deposit bonus on deposits up to $600. For me this is a free $150!
The most exciting thing for some players is they are giving away money to the players that are dealt in on every millionth hand starting with #9,900,000,000. The amount varies depending on the size of the game you're playing in as well as your VIP level and the winner of the actual hand gets much more. The lowest amount would be if you had no VIP status and were playing in micro level games. The winner of the hand would get $250 and the other players dealt in all get $100. I won't go through all the permutations, but the bottom line is for me I'll get paid $2,400 if I win one of those 100 hands and $900 if I'm just dealt in. That would be sweet!
No one knows which tables the key hands will be dealt on, but you can see the hand counter going up so I'm going to make sure I'm playing in 10 games when the key hands are going to be dealt as often as I can. Obviously I won't be playing when all 100 hands get dealt since one is going to happen about every 2.5 hours for the next 10 days or so, but I might be able to at least be logged on and playing when 50 of them are dealt. I have no idea what kind of dollar value to put on this part of the promotion, but I sure will be fired up if I get any piece of that money.
Not surprisingly the ten billionth hand will be much more significant. Getting dealt in is worth $10,000 plus a $5,000 seat in the WCOOP main event and winning the hand is worth $100,000! You can bet that when that hand gets dealt pokerstars will have more players logged on than they ever have before. I will personally be in more games than I ever have before. I'm taking my monitor to max resolution and shrinking those games down as much as I can to give myself the best chance.
When I first started thinking about this I thought "Ha ha! I'll have about a 1 in 1,000 chance at hitting this one!" But I think it's actually much better than that. Pokerstars usually has around 10,000 games going, but the majority of them are play money games and some more are multitable tournaments which don't qualify (only SNG's tables and cash game tables count) I'm going to estimate that for the big hand there will around 2500 qualifying tables and if I'm in 15 games that will give me a 1 in 166 shot of being in the big hand. For the lesser earlier hands there might be as few as 500 qualifying tables if it's late at night meaning I'll have a 1 in 50 shot of hitting each one if I'm in 10 games each time. All of a sudden I'm a little more excited about this part of the promotion.
All that stuff is great, but by far the best thing for me is DOUBLE FPP's for 10 days! Normally I get about $32 in FPP's for every 1,000 hands I play. Between now and May 22nd I'll be getting $64 for every 1,000 hands. If I bust my hump I think I can play between 25,000 and 30,000 hands between now and the 22nd. Which means this part of the promotion will be worth close to an extra $1,000 for me. Thanks pokerstars!
Saturday, May 05, 2007
My Last Hand of the Day
I had an interesting hand come up on Thursday. I'd put in my full days work and I'd left 5 out of the 6 games that I'd been playing in. In my last remaining game (a $2/$4 blind no limit hold'em cash game) I was ready to take my last hand of the day. I'd had an uneventful day and found myself ahead a little under $100.
Already thinking about watching the NBA playoffs (Go Warriors!) I was expecting to pick up a crappy hand, dump it, and call it a day. Instead I picked up 88 which while not a fantastic hand, was good enough for me to play. I had just under $160 in front of me which meant if I went broke I'd end up having a losing day and probably a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. "I'll be careful with this one," I thought.
I raised it to $12 and decided I'd be fine with picking up the $6 in pot. But I got called by one player in the field as well as the player in the small blind. The flop came down Q 9 8 with three different suits. I'd flopped three of a kind which I thought was almost certainly the best hand. This is a situation where normally I would consider checking to disguise the strength of my hand, to give the other players a chance to bet if they had a hand like KQ or AQ, to let someone bluff at the pot if they missed or to give my opponents an opportunity to catch something on the turn that would lead them to calling the rest of the way (that was a bit of a run on sentence!). Of course, while there are those benefits, sometimes checking in a spot like this blows up in your face when one of your opponents makes a hand even better that yours.
I decided not to mess around and bet out $24 into the $38 pot (Pesky pokerstars had already take $2 out of the pot for those of you about to challenge my math...E.B.). I was surprised when I got called by both players. I started to think about what they might have and what the chances were that I was behind. I didn't think either had QQ because neither reraised before the flop. The player in the field was a solid regular player and I didn't think he'd call a raise with J 10, but the small blind could have J 10 and be slowplaying a straight. Either player could have 99 and be slowplaying a set. Of course there were 165 possible two card combinations out there all of which I could beat so while I wasn't sure I was going to win the pot, I still liked my chances.
The turn was a five which I thought was a fantastic card. Unless someone had 67 it didn't change anything. The pot had $110 in it at that point and I bet out $60 expecting at least one, if not both of my opponents to give up and fold. Instead the player in the field made it $120 and the other player called all in for his remaining stack (which was a little over $100). Uh oh! I was pretty sure I was beat in one spot and thought there was a chance that I was in third place, but no way was I folding to save my last $60 when there was already almost $400 in the pot.
I crossed my fingers and called for a five on the end. I was pretty sure I'd need to improve to take down the pot and I thought the small blind might have a hand like Q9 so a 5 seemed like my best bet. Come on five! Put a five one it! Five it up! The river came out and it wasn't a five...it was the last eight! Quads baby! Send it!
I made the total nuts on the river so I didn't have to worry about what my opponents had. But I was still curious. It turned out the player in the field who I thought was too good to call my raise with J 10 had called me with 67 and hand turned a straight. The other player who should have folded before the flop, on the flop and on the turn showed 95. I guess he figured he should call before the flop since he was in the blind, he managed to turn second pair and made two pair on the turn. Every decision he made was a massive mistake, but it worked out great for me.
That one pot turned an otherwise marginal day into a solid winning day. Also I just wrote another post on a totally different topic which should be right below this post. Check it out.
Already thinking about watching the NBA playoffs (Go Warriors!) I was expecting to pick up a crappy hand, dump it, and call it a day. Instead I picked up 88 which while not a fantastic hand, was good enough for me to play. I had just under $160 in front of me which meant if I went broke I'd end up having a losing day and probably a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. "I'll be careful with this one," I thought.
I raised it to $12 and decided I'd be fine with picking up the $6 in pot. But I got called by one player in the field as well as the player in the small blind. The flop came down Q 9 8 with three different suits. I'd flopped three of a kind which I thought was almost certainly the best hand. This is a situation where normally I would consider checking to disguise the strength of my hand, to give the other players a chance to bet if they had a hand like KQ or AQ, to let someone bluff at the pot if they missed or to give my opponents an opportunity to catch something on the turn that would lead them to calling the rest of the way (that was a bit of a run on sentence!). Of course, while there are those benefits, sometimes checking in a spot like this blows up in your face when one of your opponents makes a hand even better that yours.
I decided not to mess around and bet out $24 into the $38 pot (Pesky pokerstars had already take $2 out of the pot for those of you about to challenge my math...E.B.). I was surprised when I got called by both players. I started to think about what they might have and what the chances were that I was behind. I didn't think either had QQ because neither reraised before the flop. The player in the field was a solid regular player and I didn't think he'd call a raise with J 10, but the small blind could have J 10 and be slowplaying a straight. Either player could have 99 and be slowplaying a set. Of course there were 165 possible two card combinations out there all of which I could beat so while I wasn't sure I was going to win the pot, I still liked my chances.
The turn was a five which I thought was a fantastic card. Unless someone had 67 it didn't change anything. The pot had $110 in it at that point and I bet out $60 expecting at least one, if not both of my opponents to give up and fold. Instead the player in the field made it $120 and the other player called all in for his remaining stack (which was a little over $100). Uh oh! I was pretty sure I was beat in one spot and thought there was a chance that I was in third place, but no way was I folding to save my last $60 when there was already almost $400 in the pot.
I crossed my fingers and called for a five on the end. I was pretty sure I'd need to improve to take down the pot and I thought the small blind might have a hand like Q9 so a 5 seemed like my best bet. Come on five! Put a five one it! Five it up! The river came out and it wasn't a five...it was the last eight! Quads baby! Send it!
I made the total nuts on the river so I didn't have to worry about what my opponents had. But I was still curious. It turned out the player in the field who I thought was too good to call my raise with J 10 had called me with 67 and hand turned a straight. The other player who should have folded before the flop, on the flop and on the turn showed 95. I guess he figured he should call before the flop since he was in the blind, he managed to turn second pair and made two pair on the turn. Every decision he made was a massive mistake, but it worked out great for me.
That one pot turned an otherwise marginal day into a solid winning day. Also I just wrote another post on a totally different topic which should be right below this post. Check it out.
A Tiny Bit of Good News for Online Poker
A few days ago Brian Ridgeway sent me an article from MSN that started with the following paragraphs:
Just six months after President Bush signed a law outlawing online gambling, a key Democratic politician has proposed lifting the ban.
Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, on Thursday introduced a bill that would replace the current broad prohibition with strict regulations, including criminal background checks and financial disclosure, imposed on companies that seek to offer legal Internet gambling.
"The existing legislation is an inappropriate interference on the personal freedom of Americans and this interference should be undone," Frank said. His bill is called the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act.
This can't be bad news. You can read the rest of the article here.
The article has a link to the full text of the actual bill. I read through most of it and it seems promising. Maybe there's hope for internet gambling yet!
Just six months after President Bush signed a law outlawing online gambling, a key Democratic politician has proposed lifting the ban.
Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, on Thursday introduced a bill that would replace the current broad prohibition with strict regulations, including criminal background checks and financial disclosure, imposed on companies that seek to offer legal Internet gambling.
"The existing legislation is an inappropriate interference on the personal freedom of Americans and this interference should be undone," Frank said. His bill is called the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act.
This can't be bad news. You can read the rest of the article here.
The article has a link to the full text of the actual bill. I read through most of it and it seems promising. Maybe there's hope for internet gambling yet!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
It's the Dollars, Not the Pots
The first two days of May have been solid. I've played 6,033 hands which is 10% of my goal for this month. Yesterday I almost had a breakout day when I managed to get ahead almost $700 before I took my lunch break. But, my lunch must have been cursed (Damn those Voodoo practicing grocery store employees putting a hex on my eggs!) because I gave most of it back before the end of the day and ended up winning about $250.
Today was sort of the opposite. I struggled all morning and found myself about even after 2,000 hands. But after eating some blessed shrimp and rice for lunch today, I got crazy hot in the last 1,000 hands of the day and ended up winning just shy of $1,100 for the day.
One interesting thing that happed to me yesterday was playing against a guy who was absolutely terrible, but who won more pots over a small stretch than anyone I've ever seen. During the time I was at the table with him he played 100% of hands to the flop and about 80% all the way to the showdown. The crazy thing was he kept hitting enough hands or bluffing enough people out to keep his head above water.
Pokerstars has a feature (instant hand history) where you can look back and see what happened in every hand since you joined the table. It seemed like this guy (bison bear) was winning almost every pot so out of curiosity I checked the history. In a span of 39 hands he won 27 pots including one stretch where he won 8 straight, lost one, and then won the next 5!!
Assuming that you should win one pot in every 9 it should take you 243 hands to win 27 pots. Much more dramatic is the fact that the chance of winning 8 straight pots should be 1 in 43,046,721. If it was all about the cards, the chances of winning 27 of 39 would be about the same as getting hit with a meteor while you are being struck by lightning on the way to cash in your winning lotto ticket.
But, of course it not always about just the cards. If you're willing to push hard at every pot regardless of the consequences you can bluff your way to victory in quite a few pots. And if you're also nailing a ton of flops you're going to win a bunch more.
You'd think winning so many pots this guy would be up several thousand dollars. WRONG! He'd win a bunch of small pots with massive over bets and then lose it all back when someone else made a hand. He started with $200 and while he managed to run it up to $800 he blew it all back in a dozen hands. He was playing like he had a $2,000 bet that he could win more than half the pots for a half hour or something along those lines.
It was interesting to watch and profitable for me as I was one of the people who relieved him of his winnings once he stopped connecting with the board cards. I've searched for him a few times since, but I guess he hasn't been playing. If I do find him again I'll get into his game as fast as I can and play until I go unconscious or he runs out of money.
Today was sort of the opposite. I struggled all morning and found myself about even after 2,000 hands. But after eating some blessed shrimp and rice for lunch today, I got crazy hot in the last 1,000 hands of the day and ended up winning just shy of $1,100 for the day.
One interesting thing that happed to me yesterday was playing against a guy who was absolutely terrible, but who won more pots over a small stretch than anyone I've ever seen. During the time I was at the table with him he played 100% of hands to the flop and about 80% all the way to the showdown. The crazy thing was he kept hitting enough hands or bluffing enough people out to keep his head above water.
Pokerstars has a feature (instant hand history) where you can look back and see what happened in every hand since you joined the table. It seemed like this guy (bison bear) was winning almost every pot so out of curiosity I checked the history. In a span of 39 hands he won 27 pots including one stretch where he won 8 straight, lost one, and then won the next 5!!
Assuming that you should win one pot in every 9 it should take you 243 hands to win 27 pots. Much more dramatic is the fact that the chance of winning 8 straight pots should be 1 in 43,046,721. If it was all about the cards, the chances of winning 27 of 39 would be about the same as getting hit with a meteor while you are being struck by lightning on the way to cash in your winning lotto ticket.
But, of course it not always about just the cards. If you're willing to push hard at every pot regardless of the consequences you can bluff your way to victory in quite a few pots. And if you're also nailing a ton of flops you're going to win a bunch more.
You'd think winning so many pots this guy would be up several thousand dollars. WRONG! He'd win a bunch of small pots with massive over bets and then lose it all back when someone else made a hand. He started with $200 and while he managed to run it up to $800 he blew it all back in a dozen hands. He was playing like he had a $2,000 bet that he could win more than half the pots for a half hour or something along those lines.
It was interesting to watch and profitable for me as I was one of the people who relieved him of his winnings once he stopped connecting with the board cards. I've searched for him a few times since, but I guess he hasn't been playing. If I do find him again I'll get into his game as fast as I can and play until I go unconscious or he runs out of money.
Monday, April 30, 2007
April Recap, May Goals and WSOP Heads Up
While April started with a downpour of cash into the Huff money buckets, the buckets sprung a little leak in the middle of the month. April was my best month so far this year, but I know I could have done better and I'm pretty disapointed with my effort level.
While my goal at the begining of the month was 60,000 hands of NL cash games, I only made it to 45,000. I knew 60,000 would be difficult since I had a 5 day vacation in the middle of the month, but 45,000 was still a sub par effort. I had too many days where I stopped playing at 2,500 hands instead of my target 3,000 and a few more where I had to stop after 1,500 or 2,000 because I'd lost my composure after some hard luck. I'll need to work on my mental toughness this month.
I also could have performed a little better in the time I spent playing. I came up just a hair short of my goal for cents per hand in the $1/$2 games and after a few massive beatings, I came up a good ways short of my goals for the $2/$4 games. Of course, the good news is I made more than enough to pay the bills for the month of April and that's really the most important thing.
In May, I'm once again going to shoot for 60,000 hands. Since I have no significant time consuming plans in May and there are 31 days instead of 30 I should be able to make it without too much difficulty. I'll once again be targeting 10 cents per hand in the $1/$2 games and instead of 20 cents per in the $2/$4, I'll be looking to make 15 cents a hand.
I'm also going to add in the goal of 15 workouts. As some of you know I'm in the middle of a weight loss bet with 4 friends that started in the beginning of January. It was supposed to end June 5th, but when the end of April rolled around and none of us were more than 1/2 way to out goal we decided to back off the weigh in until September 1st. So far I've lost about 12 of the 25 pounds I need to drop (I have put on some nice muscle tone though), and after a solid effort for the 1st 3+ months, I've totally slacked off the past few weeks. But, in the words of all of the world's slackers, "Tommorow, I'm going to get back on track!"
I'm going to go on record here and say if I don't make it to 60,000 hands and 15 workouts I'm going to need someone to chum me up and get on the pirahna phone.
Another thing on the horizon is the WSOP, which everyone (Everyone? Yes everyone!) knows was the genesis for this blog (This is my 128th post in less than a year!). This year unfortunately will not be the extravoganza that the 2006 WSOP was. While the WSOP is scalling up (they've gone to 55 tournaments this year up from 40 something last year) I'm scaling down.
On top of the money I lost in the tournaments last year, there was also a great deal of opportunity cost in spending three plus weeks in Vegas (my backers paid for almost all of the expenses so that wasn't a big deal - Thanks again guys and sorry!). It's expensive to not generate any of your standard income for almost a month.
This year I'm only going to play 3 events: $1,500 NL Hold 'em, $1,500 Limit Hold 'em and $1,500 Pot Limit Hold 'em which will take place on consecutive days starting on June 2nd. If I was to go deep in one of these events I'd probably stay and play at least 1 or 2 more. I was pleased to hear that they are doubling the number of starting chips this year, so for $1,500 we'll be getting 3,000 chips to start instead of 1,500 while the blind increases and level lengths remain constant. This means there will be even more play and a greater chance for skill to be the deciding factor.
For my backers from last year, if you're feeling brave (VERY brave) I'll give you a chance to take a piece of me again. I think I want about 40% of my own action which leaves 60% on the market.
If I win this year I'll pay out at 100% up to the amount you've lost on me in any WSOP tournaments and then 90% above that. For example, let's say you lost $1,000 of your investment last year and this year you have 25% of my total action. If I have a net win of $10,000 you'll get paid $2,350 ($10,000 X 25% = $2,500, but you'll get paid $1,000 at 100% and $1,500 at 90% or $1,350 so you're total = $2,350). Also I'll ask that whatever percentage of the action you take, you also take the same percentage of the expenses.
I hope everyone has a great May and I'll keep you posted on any significant (and some insignificant) happenings.
While my goal at the begining of the month was 60,000 hands of NL cash games, I only made it to 45,000. I knew 60,000 would be difficult since I had a 5 day vacation in the middle of the month, but 45,000 was still a sub par effort. I had too many days where I stopped playing at 2,500 hands instead of my target 3,000 and a few more where I had to stop after 1,500 or 2,000 because I'd lost my composure after some hard luck. I'll need to work on my mental toughness this month.
I also could have performed a little better in the time I spent playing. I came up just a hair short of my goal for cents per hand in the $1/$2 games and after a few massive beatings, I came up a good ways short of my goals for the $2/$4 games. Of course, the good news is I made more than enough to pay the bills for the month of April and that's really the most important thing.
In May, I'm once again going to shoot for 60,000 hands. Since I have no significant time consuming plans in May and there are 31 days instead of 30 I should be able to make it without too much difficulty. I'll once again be targeting 10 cents per hand in the $1/$2 games and instead of 20 cents per in the $2/$4, I'll be looking to make 15 cents a hand.
I'm also going to add in the goal of 15 workouts. As some of you know I'm in the middle of a weight loss bet with 4 friends that started in the beginning of January. It was supposed to end June 5th, but when the end of April rolled around and none of us were more than 1/2 way to out goal we decided to back off the weigh in until September 1st. So far I've lost about 12 of the 25 pounds I need to drop (I have put on some nice muscle tone though), and after a solid effort for the 1st 3+ months, I've totally slacked off the past few weeks. But, in the words of all of the world's slackers, "Tommorow, I'm going to get back on track!"
I'm going to go on record here and say if I don't make it to 60,000 hands and 15 workouts I'm going to need someone to chum me up and get on the pirahna phone.
Another thing on the horizon is the WSOP, which everyone (Everyone? Yes everyone!) knows was the genesis for this blog (This is my 128th post in less than a year!). This year unfortunately will not be the extravoganza that the 2006 WSOP was. While the WSOP is scalling up (they've gone to 55 tournaments this year up from 40 something last year) I'm scaling down.
On top of the money I lost in the tournaments last year, there was also a great deal of opportunity cost in spending three plus weeks in Vegas (my backers paid for almost all of the expenses so that wasn't a big deal - Thanks again guys and sorry!). It's expensive to not generate any of your standard income for almost a month.
This year I'm only going to play 3 events: $1,500 NL Hold 'em, $1,500 Limit Hold 'em and $1,500 Pot Limit Hold 'em which will take place on consecutive days starting on June 2nd. If I was to go deep in one of these events I'd probably stay and play at least 1 or 2 more. I was pleased to hear that they are doubling the number of starting chips this year, so for $1,500 we'll be getting 3,000 chips to start instead of 1,500 while the blind increases and level lengths remain constant. This means there will be even more play and a greater chance for skill to be the deciding factor.
For my backers from last year, if you're feeling brave (VERY brave) I'll give you a chance to take a piece of me again. I think I want about 40% of my own action which leaves 60% on the market.
If I win this year I'll pay out at 100% up to the amount you've lost on me in any WSOP tournaments and then 90% above that. For example, let's say you lost $1,000 of your investment last year and this year you have 25% of my total action. If I have a net win of $10,000 you'll get paid $2,350 ($10,000 X 25% = $2,500, but you'll get paid $1,000 at 100% and $1,500 at 90% or $1,350 so you're total = $2,350). Also I'll ask that whatever percentage of the action you take, you also take the same percentage of the expenses.
I hope everyone has a great May and I'll keep you posted on any significant (and some insignificant) happenings.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The Chat Box Makes Me Crazy
At every online poker table there is a chat box where the players can talk to each other. Typically in the bigger games there is no chat whatsoever because most of the players are focused on playing instead of chatting. Some of the players just don't care to chat and others are playing in so many games that they can't pay attention to the chat and play at the same time (usually I fall into the latter category).But as you might imagine, there are some people that use the chat box even if no one is responding or paying attention.
The area where the chat is displayed has 4 tabs (chat, stats, info and notes) and I try to click on one of the other tabs so I'll have something on my screen in that area other than the chat. But the chat tab is the default sometime I can't help but notice what people are saying.
I think the original intent of the chat box was to make the game seem more like a real poker game where people are talking all the time. What it seems to be in actuality is a place for people to bitch about their bad luck to a bunch of people who don't care.
It's also a place for know it alls to show off how much they think they know. These guys always have names like "kidsgotskillz" or "thnx4yourmoney" or "Iruleallpoker" and none of them are any good. They tell the other players how bad they're playing (usually just after they lost a pot). They call other players donkeys (really!) which somehow became a term that people who think they are personally awesome in every way use for people who they think are bad poker players. Sometimes they shorten it to simply "donk" as in, "How could you call me there you ****ing donk!" Of course these mental giants often don't bother with full sentences and simply type in "DONK!" or my personal favorite "DONK DONK DONK!"
A few other common expressions that drive me bananas are "obv," and "omg." You'd be shocked (shocked!) to see how many people type in obv after they lose a pot in which they had the best hand at some point. To the best of my knowledge it means something along the lines of "OBViously that was going to happen...obviously I was going to lose that hand because the universe is against me...obviously I am a great player and the only way I could lose was if the fates smashed my hopes of winning that pot like a blacksmith smashing a egg on fiery anvil. Obviously."
OMG is short for "Oh My God" and it also typically comes out right after someone loses a pot. It always makes me think that the person saying it is a 13 year old girl. As in "Like, oh mah god...Tiffany (all 13 year old girls have friends named Tiffany)...I, like, just totally lost that pot to a TOTAL gut shot straight!"
For the record anyone who types in "omg obv" (I've seen it before) should be covered in chum and tossed into piranha infested waters.
A few times after people have won pots from me I've seen them type in "Oops." As in a (totally sarcastically) "Oops! Did I just win that pot? Oops I didn't want that to happen! OOPS! Sorry!" More frequently I find myself in a spot where I know my opponent either has something like a full house or absolutely nothing. So I call, and they have the full house and then they type in "thank you" or "ty." Bastards! Why can't they just take the pot and be happy about it? I have no patience for people who rub it in when they win. Once again, chum 'em up, get on the piranha phone, call in some piranhas, and chuck 'em into the water.
Like I said, I try not too look at the chat box and even if I do glance at it for whatever reason 99% of the time I have no reaction whatsoever. But today I happened to look down in one of my cash games and someone hit me with a "ty" after beating me in a big pot. Then a minute later in the one tournament I was playing (one of my freerolls) this guy says "Acesedai (that's my screen name) you are terrible. You are such a donk!"
"WHAT!" I thought. The thing that blew my mind here was not only had I not been involved in a pot with this guy, I hadn't done anything that was even close to unreasonable. I thought back and in the preceding half hour or so I'd only played three hands. Two of them were medium pairs and since the blinds were big and I was somewhat short stacked I moved all in. I got called once by AQ and won and the other time I'd stolen the blinds.
On the third hand, which was about 4 or 5 hands before this guy started yapping, I moved all in for about 4,000 from the button with A5. The blinds were 400/800 with a 50 chip ante so there was already 1650 in the pot and I would have been more than happy to just win the blinds. But the big blind had pocket tens and called me. I was about a 70/30 underdog, but I flopped an ace and won the pot.
So when the guy said what he said I responed with "Thanks, same to you." Which launched him into this massive rant about how I was moving in way to much and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. At this point he had less than 1,000 chips (I had over 8,000), so I said "Great, hows that 1,000 chip stack working out for you? Good luck with that." On the very next hand he goes broke. But I get more ranting from him concluded with "I KNOW you (meaning me) are a losing player!" WHAT! I know I should have just stopped reading, but I was getting cheezed off (I think that's what it was). So I replied "You couldn't be more wrong." There was a little more back and forth in there, but I can't exactly remember it.
Then presumably he used one of the various websites out there (like sharkscope and the pokerdb) where you can search other players by username and get a summary of their past results. I knew he'd looked me up because he started spiting back correct data about my past results while telling me how much I suck. Let me say that again. HE LOOKED UP MY RESULTS AND CONTIUED TO TELL ME HOW MUCH I SUCK! It made no sense.
So I looked him up. He'd played about 900 SNG's with an average buy in of $20 and was winning about 50 cents per. I won more today than he's won in all the SNG's he's ever played! I tried looking up his cash game stats, but they only keep track of games bigger than $1/$2 NL and $5/$10 limit and he had no data, meaning the biggest games he'd ever played in were smaller than those limits. I pointed out these facts to him and he told me how much I sucked. Somebody get on the piranha phone!
This is why I try to ignore the chat box.
The area where the chat is displayed has 4 tabs (chat, stats, info and notes) and I try to click on one of the other tabs so I'll have something on my screen in that area other than the chat. But the chat tab is the default sometime I can't help but notice what people are saying.
I think the original intent of the chat box was to make the game seem more like a real poker game where people are talking all the time. What it seems to be in actuality is a place for people to bitch about their bad luck to a bunch of people who don't care.
It's also a place for know it alls to show off how much they think they know. These guys always have names like "kidsgotskillz" or "thnx4yourmoney" or "Iruleallpoker" and none of them are any good. They tell the other players how bad they're playing (usually just after they lost a pot). They call other players donkeys (really!) which somehow became a term that people who think they are personally awesome in every way use for people who they think are bad poker players. Sometimes they shorten it to simply "donk" as in, "How could you call me there you ****ing donk!" Of course these mental giants often don't bother with full sentences and simply type in "DONK!" or my personal favorite "DONK DONK DONK!"
A few other common expressions that drive me bananas are "obv," and "omg." You'd be shocked (shocked!) to see how many people type in obv after they lose a pot in which they had the best hand at some point. To the best of my knowledge it means something along the lines of "OBViously that was going to happen...obviously I was going to lose that hand because the universe is against me...obviously I am a great player and the only way I could lose was if the fates smashed my hopes of winning that pot like a blacksmith smashing a egg on fiery anvil. Obviously."
OMG is short for "Oh My God" and it also typically comes out right after someone loses a pot. It always makes me think that the person saying it is a 13 year old girl. As in "Like, oh mah god...Tiffany (all 13 year old girls have friends named Tiffany)...I, like, just totally lost that pot to a TOTAL gut shot straight!"
For the record anyone who types in "omg obv" (I've seen it before) should be covered in chum and tossed into piranha infested waters.
A few times after people have won pots from me I've seen them type in "Oops." As in a (totally sarcastically) "Oops! Did I just win that pot? Oops I didn't want that to happen! OOPS! Sorry!" More frequently I find myself in a spot where I know my opponent either has something like a full house or absolutely nothing. So I call, and they have the full house and then they type in "thank you" or "ty." Bastards! Why can't they just take the pot and be happy about it? I have no patience for people who rub it in when they win. Once again, chum 'em up, get on the piranha phone, call in some piranhas, and chuck 'em into the water.
Like I said, I try not too look at the chat box and even if I do glance at it for whatever reason 99% of the time I have no reaction whatsoever. But today I happened to look down in one of my cash games and someone hit me with a "ty" after beating me in a big pot. Then a minute later in the one tournament I was playing (one of my freerolls) this guy says "Acesedai (that's my screen name) you are terrible. You are such a donk!"
"WHAT!" I thought. The thing that blew my mind here was not only had I not been involved in a pot with this guy, I hadn't done anything that was even close to unreasonable. I thought back and in the preceding half hour or so I'd only played three hands. Two of them were medium pairs and since the blinds were big and I was somewhat short stacked I moved all in. I got called once by AQ and won and the other time I'd stolen the blinds.
On the third hand, which was about 4 or 5 hands before this guy started yapping, I moved all in for about 4,000 from the button with A5. The blinds were 400/800 with a 50 chip ante so there was already 1650 in the pot and I would have been more than happy to just win the blinds. But the big blind had pocket tens and called me. I was about a 70/30 underdog, but I flopped an ace and won the pot.
So when the guy said what he said I responed with "Thanks, same to you." Which launched him into this massive rant about how I was moving in way to much and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. At this point he had less than 1,000 chips (I had over 8,000), so I said "Great, hows that 1,000 chip stack working out for you? Good luck with that." On the very next hand he goes broke. But I get more ranting from him concluded with "I KNOW you (meaning me) are a losing player!" WHAT! I know I should have just stopped reading, but I was getting cheezed off (I think that's what it was). So I replied "You couldn't be more wrong." There was a little more back and forth in there, but I can't exactly remember it.
Then presumably he used one of the various websites out there (like sharkscope and the pokerdb) where you can search other players by username and get a summary of their past results. I knew he'd looked me up because he started spiting back correct data about my past results while telling me how much I suck. Let me say that again. HE LOOKED UP MY RESULTS AND CONTIUED TO TELL ME HOW MUCH I SUCK! It made no sense.
So I looked him up. He'd played about 900 SNG's with an average buy in of $20 and was winning about 50 cents per. I won more today than he's won in all the SNG's he's ever played! I tried looking up his cash game stats, but they only keep track of games bigger than $1/$2 NL and $5/$10 limit and he had no data, meaning the biggest games he'd ever played in were smaller than those limits. I pointed out these facts to him and he told me how much I sucked. Somebody get on the piranha phone!
This is why I try to ignore the chat box.
Friday, April 20, 2007
E.B., Pai Gow, and the Dragon
Our favorite game to play in Vegas is Pai Gow Poker. The way the game works is every player is dealt 7 cards which they must split into a 5 card hand and a 2 card hand. You can split them any way you want with the one rule that the 5 card hand must have a higher poker rank than the 2 card hand. For example, if you got dealt A K J 8 8 7 5 as your 7 cards you couldn't make your 2 card hand a pair of 8's, but you could (and would) make your two card hand A K and your 5 card hand 8 8 J 7 5.
Once you've set your hand, the dealer turns over their hand and similarly splits their hand into a 2 card hand and a 5 card hand. If you beat the dealer's 2 card hand with your 2 card hand and their 5 card hand with your 5 card hand then you win. If you lose both hands you lose, and if you win one and lose one it's a push (or a tie) and no money changes hands.
The house makes their money by only paying out 95% on a winning bet (i.e. if you bet $100 you'll only get paid $95 when you win) and by winning exact copies (i.e. if you have KQ in the 2 card hand and the dealer also has KQ in their two card hand the dealer will win the 2 card hand portion, but if you beat them in the 5 card hand you won't lose your bet).
The reason this game is so good is the house has a very small edge compared to other casino games and it's much slower (speed is your enemy in the casino). You might get 120 rolls an hour at the craps table or 100 hands an hour at the black jack table (maybe 200-300 if it's just you and the dealer). Whereas at Pai Gow it's about 25-30 hands an hour and about 40% of those are pushes.
Now that we have that little explanation out of the way, on to the story. On Sunday night I spent the night at the Flamingo, while Jake was at the Paris and E.B. was at the MGM. Jake and I hooked up for breakfast at the Paris around noon and E.B. who'd already eaten said he'd meet us at the Pai Gow tables at the Paris between 1 and 2.
Around 2 o'clock I see E.B. walking from across the room in an apparent daze almost as if he isn't sure where he is. When he got to our table he said "finish this hand, and then I have to tell you the most ridiculous story."
Before heading to the Paris E.B. had decided to play a few hands of Pai Gow at the MGM. He was betting something like $100 a hand on each of two hands (If this sounds like a lot, it is; I usually bet $25 a hand and if things are going really well I might push it up to $50 a hand) when he came across the most tremendous dealer error.
In the past few months the MGM and it's sister properties have introduced a new bet at the Pai Gow table. You can deal 7 seven card hands from the deck which in the past used to be six player hands and a dealer hand. They've since switched it to a dealer hand, 5 player hands and The Dragon Hand (gasp)! The dragon hand is another hand that all 5 players can bet on. After the players look at their own hands and set them how they want, the dealer asks if anyone wants to "Bet The Dragon." Once the players have put their money in a betting circle which says "Dragon" or has a picture of a dragon on it, the dealer turns over their hand, sets it and then sets the dragon hand (they have rules to follow about how to set both hands). If the dragon hand beats the dealer's hand the players, as you might guess, win their dragon bet. If it loses or pushes they lose or push their dragon bet.
What happened at the table where E.B. was the only player was the dealer got confused about the order of operations on the dragon bet. Instead of asking E.B. if he wanted to bet the dragon BEFORE she turned over the dealer hand, she asked him AFTER he already saw what the dealer hand was!!! If she continued that way he wouldn't know what the dragon hand was going to be, but if the dealer showed a good hand he could avoid betting the dragon and if the dealer had garbage he could bet the dragon with a huge positive expectation. This is sort of like playing black jack if you could see both of the dealer's cards. You wouldn't win every hand, but you have such a huge advantage that it wouldn't take long to make some big money.
So E.B, who had come to Vegas with a nice wad of cash, pulled out $5,000 and bet $1,000 on the first hand. He had to go big on the regular hand, because the betting limit of the dragon bet is 2 times your regular bet. Also he was thinking that this was a limited time opportunity because at any time another player could sit down and correct the dealer or the pit boss could notice that the dealer was totally screwing up. In fact, as they normally do, the pit boss came over to watch the first hand that E.B. put $1,000 out there. But before the dealer could say anything or do anything to tip off the pit boss that she was going in the wrong order E.B. said "just kill the dragon hand, I'm not going to bet it this time."
Unfortunately, E.B. got a mediocre hand and lost to the dealer's hand. By the next hand, the pit boss had moved on and again E.B. bet $1,000. This time the dealer got a strong hand so E.B. opted to not bet the dragon and sadly lost his hand again. On the third hand with another $1,000 out there he got dealt a hand that contained no straights, flushes, pairs or cards above jack. A monumentally bad hand. But, the dealer got dealt a king high with no straights or flushes. An almost equally terrible hand. While E.B. knew he would lose his hand he was almost sure to win the dragon hand. So he bet the maximum $2,000 on the dragon hand...and lost! Not only did he not win, but he didn't even push. What a total disaster!
I broke out my probability book and did some calculations. 92% of the time you'll be dealt an ace high or better and of the remaining 8% a good chunk of them would at least push against an average king high. He got TOTALLY screwed at the absolute worst possible time and to make it worse he was out of money so he couldn't try to get it back.
While I'm pretty risk adverse for a professional gambler, in a spot where I'm getting paid even money on a bet where I'm a 10 to 1 favorite, I'd gladly bet $2,000 in a second. To put it into perspective let's say I give you a chance to draw from a deck of cards. If you draw any 2 or the 3 of clubs I win. If you draw anything else you win. How much would you bet if you were 100% sure it was a fair deck?
There's actually more to the story and it involves what happened when he got to the Paris, but that will have to wait for a day or two. Aren't these minor cliff hangers and teasers awesome!
Once you've set your hand, the dealer turns over their hand and similarly splits their hand into a 2 card hand and a 5 card hand. If you beat the dealer's 2 card hand with your 2 card hand and their 5 card hand with your 5 card hand then you win. If you lose both hands you lose, and if you win one and lose one it's a push (or a tie) and no money changes hands.
The house makes their money by only paying out 95% on a winning bet (i.e. if you bet $100 you'll only get paid $95 when you win) and by winning exact copies (i.e. if you have KQ in the 2 card hand and the dealer also has KQ in their two card hand the dealer will win the 2 card hand portion, but if you beat them in the 5 card hand you won't lose your bet).
The reason this game is so good is the house has a very small edge compared to other casino games and it's much slower (speed is your enemy in the casino). You might get 120 rolls an hour at the craps table or 100 hands an hour at the black jack table (maybe 200-300 if it's just you and the dealer). Whereas at Pai Gow it's about 25-30 hands an hour and about 40% of those are pushes.
Now that we have that little explanation out of the way, on to the story. On Sunday night I spent the night at the Flamingo, while Jake was at the Paris and E.B. was at the MGM. Jake and I hooked up for breakfast at the Paris around noon and E.B. who'd already eaten said he'd meet us at the Pai Gow tables at the Paris between 1 and 2.
Around 2 o'clock I see E.B. walking from across the room in an apparent daze almost as if he isn't sure where he is. When he got to our table he said "finish this hand, and then I have to tell you the most ridiculous story."
Before heading to the Paris E.B. had decided to play a few hands of Pai Gow at the MGM. He was betting something like $100 a hand on each of two hands (If this sounds like a lot, it is; I usually bet $25 a hand and if things are going really well I might push it up to $50 a hand) when he came across the most tremendous dealer error.
In the past few months the MGM and it's sister properties have introduced a new bet at the Pai Gow table. You can deal 7 seven card hands from the deck which in the past used to be six player hands and a dealer hand. They've since switched it to a dealer hand, 5 player hands and The Dragon Hand (gasp)! The dragon hand is another hand that all 5 players can bet on. After the players look at their own hands and set them how they want, the dealer asks if anyone wants to "Bet The Dragon." Once the players have put their money in a betting circle which says "Dragon" or has a picture of a dragon on it, the dealer turns over their hand, sets it and then sets the dragon hand (they have rules to follow about how to set both hands). If the dragon hand beats the dealer's hand the players, as you might guess, win their dragon bet. If it loses or pushes they lose or push their dragon bet.
What happened at the table where E.B. was the only player was the dealer got confused about the order of operations on the dragon bet. Instead of asking E.B. if he wanted to bet the dragon BEFORE she turned over the dealer hand, she asked him AFTER he already saw what the dealer hand was!!! If she continued that way he wouldn't know what the dragon hand was going to be, but if the dealer showed a good hand he could avoid betting the dragon and if the dealer had garbage he could bet the dragon with a huge positive expectation. This is sort of like playing black jack if you could see both of the dealer's cards. You wouldn't win every hand, but you have such a huge advantage that it wouldn't take long to make some big money.
So E.B, who had come to Vegas with a nice wad of cash, pulled out $5,000 and bet $1,000 on the first hand. He had to go big on the regular hand, because the betting limit of the dragon bet is 2 times your regular bet. Also he was thinking that this was a limited time opportunity because at any time another player could sit down and correct the dealer or the pit boss could notice that the dealer was totally screwing up. In fact, as they normally do, the pit boss came over to watch the first hand that E.B. put $1,000 out there. But before the dealer could say anything or do anything to tip off the pit boss that she was going in the wrong order E.B. said "just kill the dragon hand, I'm not going to bet it this time."
Unfortunately, E.B. got a mediocre hand and lost to the dealer's hand. By the next hand, the pit boss had moved on and again E.B. bet $1,000. This time the dealer got a strong hand so E.B. opted to not bet the dragon and sadly lost his hand again. On the third hand with another $1,000 out there he got dealt a hand that contained no straights, flushes, pairs or cards above jack. A monumentally bad hand. But, the dealer got dealt a king high with no straights or flushes. An almost equally terrible hand. While E.B. knew he would lose his hand he was almost sure to win the dragon hand. So he bet the maximum $2,000 on the dragon hand...and lost! Not only did he not win, but he didn't even push. What a total disaster!
I broke out my probability book and did some calculations. 92% of the time you'll be dealt an ace high or better and of the remaining 8% a good chunk of them would at least push against an average king high. He got TOTALLY screwed at the absolute worst possible time and to make it worse he was out of money so he couldn't try to get it back.
While I'm pretty risk adverse for a professional gambler, in a spot where I'm getting paid even money on a bet where I'm a 10 to 1 favorite, I'd gladly bet $2,000 in a second. To put it into perspective let's say I give you a chance to draw from a deck of cards. If you draw any 2 or the 3 of clubs I win. If you draw anything else you win. How much would you bet if you were 100% sure it was a fair deck?
There's actually more to the story and it involves what happened when he got to the Paris, but that will have to wait for a day or two. Aren't these minor cliff hangers and teasers awesome!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
My Poker Comeback and E.B.'s Disaster
Today I have two more stories worth mentioning for my recent trip to Vegas. The first is a poker story. On Monday Jake, Brian and I made our way to the MGM poker room to play in a $125 no limit hold 'em tournament. The poker room was dead and only 22 people ended up playing, which according to the staff was a very low turn out even for a Monday (there had been 63 players the night before).
We started with 3,000 chips, blinds of 25/50 and 30 minute limits with Brian and Jake at the same table. I spent the early rounds chatting with two British guys who were about my age and folding almost all of my hands. As a whole the field was weak and inexperienced.
Jake was eliminated about an hour and a half into the tournament and as we combined into one table I was just shy of an average chip stack while Brian had somewhat more than average. They were paying 4 places so I liked the chances of at least one of us making it to the money. Brian quickly won a huge pot and found himself in great shape, but after a few mistakes and a little bad luck he went out 6th.
Meanwhile I'd been able to steal the blinds a few times, but hadn't really picked up a real hand and found myself severly short stacked. At the start of the 7th level the blinds jumped from 400/800 with a 100 chip ante to 800/1600 with a 200 chip ante. This is a ridiculous jump at this stage and only in a total bullshit tournament like this would a blind increase like this fly.
When this big jump happend we'd just come back from a break, were playing 5 handed and I was the short stack with 4000 chips. I threw out my 200 ante and planned on moving all in with almost anything. The 4 remaining players were playing super tight trying to make the money and the player in the big blind (we'll call him Captain Red Shirt) was a poor enough player that I thought he might fold to what amounted to a minimum raise. Sadly I looked down at 5 3 off suit and decided I'd go with whatever I got in the big blind.
In the big blind I almost caught a big break. After the other players folded, the guy in the small blind, the poorly skilled Captain Red Shirt, spent about 20 seconds looking at his cards like one was a deuce and the other was a zero. He was in a spot where given our realative stacks and the situation he should have raised with 100% of hands instantly. I was thinking, "Fold, fold, fold it you jerk! Folding, folding is the play that will work!"
The player two to my left (we'll call him Mellow Yellow) was also running low on chips with a little over 4000 and I thought if I could make it throught the blinds I might be able to out last him. The Captain was uninfluenced by my psychic suggestions and instead of folding he just called. I looked down at 6 9 which I thought might be the best hand, but I decided to look at the flop before commiting the last of my chips. Unfortunately the flop came down K J J and my opponent bet like he hit something. While I was planning on betting if it got to me I couldn't call with 6 9.
I resolved to call with anything in the small blind since I'd have half of my already meager stack committed to the pot. But, when everyone but Mellow Yellow called in front of me and I looked down at 7 4 I decided to let them take the flop along with the big blind. I was hoping that two of the three players would make big hands and one would go broke, putting me in the money. Of course Red Shirt bet and the other two folded.
Now I was down to 800 with 45,200 chips split up among my opponents with every hand costing me 200. My next hand was 7 2 and I folded. The hand after the Red Shirt came in for a raise and I folded J 4. The next one was 8 5 and I decided to give everyone else one more chance to do something stupid and wait until the last possible hand to go all in. So I was all in on the next hand for 200 chips (1/15th of what I'd started with and 1/46th of the average stack) and in the big blind spot.
I frowned when I saw the player on the button (he doesn't get a name) come into the pot along with Red Shirt in the small blind. I looked down at k 5 of clubs and was happy to see a flop of 7 7 3 with two clubs. To my total shock and surprise Captain Red Shirt bet enough to put the player on the button all in. This is a spot where unless one player flops a monster hand, both players will check all the way in an effort to eliminate the short stack (me) and get them both into the money. I was even more surprised to see the player on the button call! Now if I could manage to make the best hand AND have Red Shirt some how beat the player on the button, I'd make the money. I knew my chances were slim since all I had was king high, but at least I had a chance.
I was shocked (shocked!) to see Red Shirt (who had been the one betting) turn over 9 10 (no pair, no draw) and the other player show A 3 (a pair of 3's). The turn card was literally the best card in the deck, the 9 of clubs! Now I had a flush, AND the player with the most chips had the second best hand. The river was a blank and I was in the money!
After winning that pot I had 1,000 chips and after putting 200 in for the ante and 800 for the small blind I was all in again. I picked up A 2, the best hand I'd seen in a while and crossed my fingers. After taking the flop three way, Red Shirt bet and the other player folded. The board was 9 7 5 with 2 spades and even though I didn't have anything, I thought ace high might be good. I was sad to see that Red Shirt had J 5 of spades meaning I'd need a non spade ace to win. I was standing up to go when a red 6 came on the turn and a red 8 came on the river making a straight on the board. Now I was up to 1600.
On the next hand we got the confrontation you've all been waiting to hear about. The clash of the titans. Mellow Yellow picked up pocket 9's and went broke when Captain Red Shirt made a pair of J's after starting with K J. This moved me into 3rd place. I managed to run my stack up to over 5,000, but went broke in a hand which has since left my memory.
The difference between 5th and 3rd was $440 and the whole thing left me with a good feeling. They say all you need is a chip and a chair to make a comeback in a tournament and this tournamnet was proof of that concept.
The bad news is, I've now spent too much time writing about myself and you'll have to wait until tomorrow or the next day to hear about E.B.'s disaster. It is much more dramatic, both in terms of dollar amount (roughly 11.36 times as dramatic) and unusual nature.
We started with 3,000 chips, blinds of 25/50 and 30 minute limits with Brian and Jake at the same table. I spent the early rounds chatting with two British guys who were about my age and folding almost all of my hands. As a whole the field was weak and inexperienced.
Jake was eliminated about an hour and a half into the tournament and as we combined into one table I was just shy of an average chip stack while Brian had somewhat more than average. They were paying 4 places so I liked the chances of at least one of us making it to the money. Brian quickly won a huge pot and found himself in great shape, but after a few mistakes and a little bad luck he went out 6th.
Meanwhile I'd been able to steal the blinds a few times, but hadn't really picked up a real hand and found myself severly short stacked. At the start of the 7th level the blinds jumped from 400/800 with a 100 chip ante to 800/1600 with a 200 chip ante. This is a ridiculous jump at this stage and only in a total bullshit tournament like this would a blind increase like this fly.
When this big jump happend we'd just come back from a break, were playing 5 handed and I was the short stack with 4000 chips. I threw out my 200 ante and planned on moving all in with almost anything. The 4 remaining players were playing super tight trying to make the money and the player in the big blind (we'll call him Captain Red Shirt) was a poor enough player that I thought he might fold to what amounted to a minimum raise. Sadly I looked down at 5 3 off suit and decided I'd go with whatever I got in the big blind.
In the big blind I almost caught a big break. After the other players folded, the guy in the small blind, the poorly skilled Captain Red Shirt, spent about 20 seconds looking at his cards like one was a deuce and the other was a zero. He was in a spot where given our realative stacks and the situation he should have raised with 100% of hands instantly. I was thinking, "Fold, fold, fold it you jerk! Folding, folding is the play that will work!"
The player two to my left (we'll call him Mellow Yellow) was also running low on chips with a little over 4000 and I thought if I could make it throught the blinds I might be able to out last him. The Captain was uninfluenced by my psychic suggestions and instead of folding he just called. I looked down at 6 9 which I thought might be the best hand, but I decided to look at the flop before commiting the last of my chips. Unfortunately the flop came down K J J and my opponent bet like he hit something. While I was planning on betting if it got to me I couldn't call with 6 9.
I resolved to call with anything in the small blind since I'd have half of my already meager stack committed to the pot. But, when everyone but Mellow Yellow called in front of me and I looked down at 7 4 I decided to let them take the flop along with the big blind. I was hoping that two of the three players would make big hands and one would go broke, putting me in the money. Of course Red Shirt bet and the other two folded.
Now I was down to 800 with 45,200 chips split up among my opponents with every hand costing me 200. My next hand was 7 2 and I folded. The hand after the Red Shirt came in for a raise and I folded J 4. The next one was 8 5 and I decided to give everyone else one more chance to do something stupid and wait until the last possible hand to go all in. So I was all in on the next hand for 200 chips (1/15th of what I'd started with and 1/46th of the average stack) and in the big blind spot.
I frowned when I saw the player on the button (he doesn't get a name) come into the pot along with Red Shirt in the small blind. I looked down at k 5 of clubs and was happy to see a flop of 7 7 3 with two clubs. To my total shock and surprise Captain Red Shirt bet enough to put the player on the button all in. This is a spot where unless one player flops a monster hand, both players will check all the way in an effort to eliminate the short stack (me) and get them both into the money. I was even more surprised to see the player on the button call! Now if I could manage to make the best hand AND have Red Shirt some how beat the player on the button, I'd make the money. I knew my chances were slim since all I had was king high, but at least I had a chance.
I was shocked (shocked!) to see Red Shirt (who had been the one betting) turn over 9 10 (no pair, no draw) and the other player show A 3 (a pair of 3's). The turn card was literally the best card in the deck, the 9 of clubs! Now I had a flush, AND the player with the most chips had the second best hand. The river was a blank and I was in the money!
After winning that pot I had 1,000 chips and after putting 200 in for the ante and 800 for the small blind I was all in again. I picked up A 2, the best hand I'd seen in a while and crossed my fingers. After taking the flop three way, Red Shirt bet and the other player folded. The board was 9 7 5 with 2 spades and even though I didn't have anything, I thought ace high might be good. I was sad to see that Red Shirt had J 5 of spades meaning I'd need a non spade ace to win. I was standing up to go when a red 6 came on the turn and a red 8 came on the river making a straight on the board. Now I was up to 1600.
On the next hand we got the confrontation you've all been waiting to hear about. The clash of the titans. Mellow Yellow picked up pocket 9's and went broke when Captain Red Shirt made a pair of J's after starting with K J. This moved me into 3rd place. I managed to run my stack up to over 5,000, but went broke in a hand which has since left my memory.
The difference between 5th and 3rd was $440 and the whole thing left me with a good feeling. They say all you need is a chip and a chair to make a comeback in a tournament and this tournamnet was proof of that concept.
The bad news is, I've now spent too much time writing about myself and you'll have to wait until tomorrow or the next day to hear about E.B.'s disaster. It is much more dramatic, both in terms of dollar amount (roughly 11.36 times as dramatic) and unusual nature.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Whisky City and Vegas
Before I get to anything else I want to congratulate Brian Ridgeway and his fiance' Andrea on their engagement! As soon as I hooked up with Brian in Vegas the first thing he did was tell me the good news. I was pleseantly surprised since I didn't know he was planning on proposing, but at the same time I was not at all surprised that he would want to marry such a fantastic woman. He said they have a tentative date of May 10th 2008 and will be getting married in Maryland. Also they've asked me to perform the ceremony! Very exciting stuff.
Now on to other topics. I managed to survive my vacation and now that it's over it seemed like it lasted about 45 seconds. The festivities started on Saturday night with the Whiskies of the World convention at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Jake, E.B. and I got to the hotel about 5 p.m. about 30 minutes before the event was going to start. After a short wait someone handed us a tote bag (for free goodies), we grabbed a few glasses and off we went.
I knew there was going to be a good amount of whisky at this event since it was $115 a person, but I wasn't sure how much waiting in line there would be or if the pours would be so insubstantial that it would be hard to get a buzz going. It turns out that it was a completely unlimited amount. There were roughly 50 vendors, each had between 3 and 6 of their best whiskies and there was virtually no waiting once we got into the tasting room.
We'd walk up to a table start with the 12 year stuff, then compare it to the 18 year and finally to the 21 year. We even tried two or three 30 year old scotches and whiskies which were over $400 a bottle. Three or four vendors had some other kind of hard alcohol in addition to their whisky and there was one that was exclusively gin and two that were vodka only.
Any worries I had about pour size were quelled in the first 5 minutes. While it was usually just a splash for the highest end stuff, it was a 1/2 shot or more for even the $100 a bottle stuff. And if it wasn't enough you could just ask for more. But after the first few I stuck to the plan of having a little taste and then dumping the rest in the dump bucket because I wanted to try at least one thing from every vendor (I think I hit about 75% of them) and like I said every vendor had at least 3 different whiskies.
Happily, there was also a huge table covered in hundreds and hundreds of bottled waters and a buffet that lasted all night. We hit the buffet three times and between the three of us probably had 25 bottles of water. During our first pit stop at the buffet we started asking each other if we knew exactly what the difference between a Bourbon and a regular whisky or a Scotch was. It turns out that none of us really knew, but the guy at the next table over heard us and ended up giving us an impromptu 10 minute lesson on what differentiates the various kinds of whisky.
All in all it was a great night. I managed to avoid a massive hangover in part due to the constant refueling and in part due to the fact that my stomach could only handle so much straight whisky. I found a few jewels and discovered conclusively that I prefer Bourbon or Kentucky whisky to Scotch. You can check out the pictures I took here
The next day we left Oakland airport at around 3 p.m. and after a little over an hour of the most turbulent plane ride I can remember we landed in Vegas. Before the trip I called a few hotels about getting a free room, but because there was one of the biggest conferences of the year in town (some kind of broadcasting conference) the only place I could manage was the Flamingo. Luckily E.B. was able to swing a free room at the MGM and the Paris so we had plenty of hotel space to go around.
The genesis of the trip was the fact that Brian was going to be in town for 4 days for a conference. He's an Oracle database administrator working for the U.S. census bureau and was attending an Oracle conference with his coworker Tom. Tom is an avid reader of this very blog (Hey Tom) and it was very interesting having someone who you've never met know a lot about you. Instead of "I heard your wife was pregnant" it was "So when is Jen going to have her next ultrasound?" While I might hear from a friend of a friend "I heard you were a poker player?" From Tom I got "I know April started out strong for you, how's it been going since?" To his credit, despite the fact that he was the least seasoned gambler among the 5 of us (by a mile), he was the only one who to my knowledge ended up winning for the trip.
For the most part the trip was a pretty standard Vegas Trip with plenty of drinking, eating and gambling but there were a few highlights. The first highlight was the best meal I've ever had (without a doubt) at 2 in the morning. We spent Monday and on into the early hours of Tuesday playing at the MGM. We'd had a late although sizable lunch but we skipped dinner, so by 2 a.m. we were all starving. After speaking to the pit boss we got a comp for a free meal at the Studio Cafe which was the only restaurant that was still open at the MGM. Every casino has one restaurant that's open 24 hours and I knew from experience that this one was one of the best.
The four of us (Tom split off earlier in the evening) sat down and as it usually does, the thing on the menu that caught my eye was the steak and lobster. Everyone else started mentioning the shrimp cocktail and we decided it was time to find out if there was a dollar limit on our comp. When our waiter came back we said "What's the limit on the comp" and he said (knowing he was going to get tipped based on the total) "It's unlimited, you can each get a 15 piece shrimp cocktail and a filet and lobster with desert and a bottle of wine if you want." Not wanting to over do it we only got two 15 piece shrimp cocktails ($35 per) for the table and a platter of chicken fingers (with 4 dipping sauces) that must have cleared an entire hen house. And, of course, all four of us got the steak and lobster. Throw in a few deserts and a half dozen 1 litre bottles of Fiji water and the bill came out to $357. Getting a meal like that for free made those of us that lost that night (not me, ha ha losers!) feel a little better about losing.
There is one major highlight and one MAJOR lowlight from the trip which will have to wait for tomorrow. The first one is about a miraculous comeback I had in a small poker tournament at the MGM and the other is about an unbelievably favorable situation that E.B. came across that ended up TOTALLY screwing him over. Both are stories that you will not want to miss.
Now on to other topics. I managed to survive my vacation and now that it's over it seemed like it lasted about 45 seconds. The festivities started on Saturday night with the Whiskies of the World convention at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Jake, E.B. and I got to the hotel about 5 p.m. about 30 minutes before the event was going to start. After a short wait someone handed us a tote bag (for free goodies), we grabbed a few glasses and off we went.
I knew there was going to be a good amount of whisky at this event since it was $115 a person, but I wasn't sure how much waiting in line there would be or if the pours would be so insubstantial that it would be hard to get a buzz going. It turns out that it was a completely unlimited amount. There were roughly 50 vendors, each had between 3 and 6 of their best whiskies and there was virtually no waiting once we got into the tasting room.
We'd walk up to a table start with the 12 year stuff, then compare it to the 18 year and finally to the 21 year. We even tried two or three 30 year old scotches and whiskies which were over $400 a bottle. Three or four vendors had some other kind of hard alcohol in addition to their whisky and there was one that was exclusively gin and two that were vodka only.
Any worries I had about pour size were quelled in the first 5 minutes. While it was usually just a splash for the highest end stuff, it was a 1/2 shot or more for even the $100 a bottle stuff. And if it wasn't enough you could just ask for more. But after the first few I stuck to the plan of having a little taste and then dumping the rest in the dump bucket because I wanted to try at least one thing from every vendor (I think I hit about 75% of them) and like I said every vendor had at least 3 different whiskies.
Happily, there was also a huge table covered in hundreds and hundreds of bottled waters and a buffet that lasted all night. We hit the buffet three times and between the three of us probably had 25 bottles of water. During our first pit stop at the buffet we started asking each other if we knew exactly what the difference between a Bourbon and a regular whisky or a Scotch was. It turns out that none of us really knew, but the guy at the next table over heard us and ended up giving us an impromptu 10 minute lesson on what differentiates the various kinds of whisky.
All in all it was a great night. I managed to avoid a massive hangover in part due to the constant refueling and in part due to the fact that my stomach could only handle so much straight whisky. I found a few jewels and discovered conclusively that I prefer Bourbon or Kentucky whisky to Scotch. You can check out the pictures I took here
The next day we left Oakland airport at around 3 p.m. and after a little over an hour of the most turbulent plane ride I can remember we landed in Vegas. Before the trip I called a few hotels about getting a free room, but because there was one of the biggest conferences of the year in town (some kind of broadcasting conference) the only place I could manage was the Flamingo. Luckily E.B. was able to swing a free room at the MGM and the Paris so we had plenty of hotel space to go around.
The genesis of the trip was the fact that Brian was going to be in town for 4 days for a conference. He's an Oracle database administrator working for the U.S. census bureau and was attending an Oracle conference with his coworker Tom. Tom is an avid reader of this very blog (Hey Tom) and it was very interesting having someone who you've never met know a lot about you. Instead of "I heard your wife was pregnant" it was "So when is Jen going to have her next ultrasound?" While I might hear from a friend of a friend "I heard you were a poker player?" From Tom I got "I know April started out strong for you, how's it been going since?" To his credit, despite the fact that he was the least seasoned gambler among the 5 of us (by a mile), he was the only one who to my knowledge ended up winning for the trip.
For the most part the trip was a pretty standard Vegas Trip with plenty of drinking, eating and gambling but there were a few highlights. The first highlight was the best meal I've ever had (without a doubt) at 2 in the morning. We spent Monday and on into the early hours of Tuesday playing at the MGM. We'd had a late although sizable lunch but we skipped dinner, so by 2 a.m. we were all starving. After speaking to the pit boss we got a comp for a free meal at the Studio Cafe which was the only restaurant that was still open at the MGM. Every casino has one restaurant that's open 24 hours and I knew from experience that this one was one of the best.
The four of us (Tom split off earlier in the evening) sat down and as it usually does, the thing on the menu that caught my eye was the steak and lobster. Everyone else started mentioning the shrimp cocktail and we decided it was time to find out if there was a dollar limit on our comp. When our waiter came back we said "What's the limit on the comp" and he said (knowing he was going to get tipped based on the total) "It's unlimited, you can each get a 15 piece shrimp cocktail and a filet and lobster with desert and a bottle of wine if you want." Not wanting to over do it we only got two 15 piece shrimp cocktails ($35 per) for the table and a platter of chicken fingers (with 4 dipping sauces) that must have cleared an entire hen house. And, of course, all four of us got the steak and lobster. Throw in a few deserts and a half dozen 1 litre bottles of Fiji water and the bill came out to $357. Getting a meal like that for free made those of us that lost that night (not me, ha ha losers!) feel a little better about losing.
There is one major highlight and one MAJOR lowlight from the trip which will have to wait for tomorrow. The first one is about a miraculous comeback I had in a small poker tournament at the MGM and the other is about an unbelievably favorable situation that E.B. came across that ended up TOTALLY screwing him over. Both are stories that you will not want to miss.
Friday, April 13, 2007
A Baby Step Back
After 8 straight winning days, I took a small step back by booking small losses on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm still kicking ass and feel very comfortable with how I'm playing.
I think it's going to be difficult to make it to my goal of 60,000 hands in April. I'm taking today off and after I play for a few hours tomorrow morning I'll be at 25,000 hands. The big bump in the road is the 5 day vacation that I'll be starting tomorrow afternoon which I've really been looking forward to.
For Jake's birthday E.B. and I got him and ourselves, tickets to the 8th Annual Whiskies of the World Expo which takes place at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. I first heard about this event while watching an episode of Modern Marvels on distilling a few years back and have wanted to go ever since.
While I wouldn't consider myself a big whisky drinker by any stretch and I usually stick with wine or beer if I'm drinking, I have been known to sip on a glass if the occasion calls for it. Anyway it was $115 a person and there are supposed to be over 200 whiskies to taste so it should be an amazing event.
For anyone worried about my well being I promise to limit it to 100 shots of whisky and drive slow on the way home. Just kidding, Jen is going to drive us to the BART station (it's just like the subway, but it has a stupid name) before and pick us up after. Also the event features an evening long buffet and various speakers and it's only 4 hours long so while I expect to be intoxicated at the end, I won't be falling down dangerous drunk.
Then on Sunday Jake, E.B., Brian Ridgeway and I will be gambling away in Vegas for three days. The wives and girlfriends are staying home which for some guys would be a good thing, but since we all have awesome wives and girlfriends who like to Vegas it up as much as we do we'll miss them on this trip. I can hear the crys of "yeah right" and "You are an ass kisser, Huff!" coming from all directions, but it's true. Our ladies like to gamble and have a drink or two just as much as we do, we love then and enjoy their company!
When I get back, it will be back to work, but for now I'm looking forward to the time off.
I think it's going to be difficult to make it to my goal of 60,000 hands in April. I'm taking today off and after I play for a few hours tomorrow morning I'll be at 25,000 hands. The big bump in the road is the 5 day vacation that I'll be starting tomorrow afternoon which I've really been looking forward to.
For Jake's birthday E.B. and I got him and ourselves, tickets to the 8th Annual Whiskies of the World Expo which takes place at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. I first heard about this event while watching an episode of Modern Marvels on distilling a few years back and have wanted to go ever since.
While I wouldn't consider myself a big whisky drinker by any stretch and I usually stick with wine or beer if I'm drinking, I have been known to sip on a glass if the occasion calls for it. Anyway it was $115 a person and there are supposed to be over 200 whiskies to taste so it should be an amazing event.
For anyone worried about my well being I promise to limit it to 100 shots of whisky and drive slow on the way home. Just kidding, Jen is going to drive us to the BART station (it's just like the subway, but it has a stupid name) before and pick us up after. Also the event features an evening long buffet and various speakers and it's only 4 hours long so while I expect to be intoxicated at the end, I won't be falling down dangerous drunk.
Then on Sunday Jake, E.B., Brian Ridgeway and I will be gambling away in Vegas for three days. The wives and girlfriends are staying home which for some guys would be a good thing, but since we all have awesome wives and girlfriends who like to Vegas it up as much as we do we'll miss them on this trip. I can hear the crys of "yeah right" and "You are an ass kisser, Huff!" coming from all directions, but it's true. Our ladies like to gamble and have a drink or two just as much as we do, we love then and enjoy their company!
When I get back, it will be back to work, but for now I'm looking forward to the time off.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
This is Getting Pleasantly Ridiculous
It's days like today that make me love my lifestyle. I woke up and played for 4 hours. For my lunch break I took a 4 hours to watch the entire 4th round of the Masters. Then I played another 2 hours or so. Over the course of those 6 hours of play I won $1,532 which is my best day so far this year.
I have been totally dominating ever since I swtiched to playing these no limit cash games. So far in April (in 8 days!) I've won $4,417. I'm winning 22.7 cents a hand in the $1/$2 games and 31.8 cents a hand in the $2/$4 games!
I feel like I've finally gotten a chance to rebuild my bankroll a little and replenish my reserves. Hopefully I can keep up anything even close to this pace.
I have been totally dominating ever since I swtiched to playing these no limit cash games. So far in April (in 8 days!) I've won $4,417. I'm winning 22.7 cents a hand in the $1/$2 games and 31.8 cents a hand in the $2/$4 games!
I feel like I've finally gotten a chance to rebuild my bankroll a little and replenish my reserves. Hopefully I can keep up anything even close to this pace.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
What's In a Name?
I've had a few different names on a few different poker sites and over the course of the past three years I've played against certainly thousands and probably tens of thousands of different players. Some people have names like AApoker, Igotthenutz, or treysfull21, others have names like BigJohn32 or StudSteve and still others have names that are as far as I can tell total nonsense such as Earyda342. But, in the mix of all of those names a few people come up with clever or at least interesting monikers.
My name ACESEDAI is no doubt confusing to most people. What it's supposed to be is Ace Sedai and it's a poker related spin on Aes Sedai, who are the most powerful characters in the series of books The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordon. I think the people who get it think it's clever. But I can tell from the chat box that most people think it's supposed to be Aces edai whatever the hell that would be. I know someone thought it was supposed to be pronounced like aces die and I'm sure others have thought my name was Ed and I was trying to say aces, Ed, artifical inteligence.
I wish I'd made a note of all of the best names that I've seen, but there are only a few that have stuck with me. Maybe my favorite one is Sarahbellum. When I saw that one I thought to myself anyone making clever references to a specific part of the brain is probably not an idiot. Two funny ones I remember are NuclearFart and Upay4myweed.
The main inspiration for this post though was the following name
>///' > ooO.
At first I looked at it and thought "What the hell kind of name is that?" But upon closer inspection I saw that it's actually a fish blowing 3 bubbles (I can almost hear a chorus of "Ohhhhhhhh yeeaaaaahs" in the distance). Although, it's no doubt a pain in the ass to enter a username that requires heavy use of the shift key, I thought it was a neat username.
In other news April is off to a good start. Happily I've turned things around in the $1/$2 games and while I've been unable to continue the furious pace in the $2/$4 games, I'm still thrilled with how it's going so far. After 4 days I've played 5,117 hands of $1/$2 and won $1,196 (23.3 cents per hand) and I've played 4,607 hands of $2/$4 and won $849 (18.4 cents per hand). So far I'm right on track in terms of making it to 60,000 hands and making it to over $10,000 for the month.
Jen and I are both taking today off to go visit our accountant and do our taxes for 2006. AWESOME! Happily I've made some quarterly payments to the IRS and all of those massive WSOP losses are tax deductible so the damage shouldn't be too bad. But, since all I can do is guess about how much I owe it's still a little (or a lot) stressful.
I'll also be taking tomorrow off since I need a little break. I've played at least some poker for 17 straight days (12 wins and 5 losses) and I've got 7 straight full work days on my calender starting Saturday if I'm going make it to 30,000 hands before I leave for Vegas on the 15th.
My name ACESEDAI is no doubt confusing to most people. What it's supposed to be is Ace Sedai and it's a poker related spin on Aes Sedai, who are the most powerful characters in the series of books The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordon. I think the people who get it think it's clever. But I can tell from the chat box that most people think it's supposed to be Aces edai whatever the hell that would be. I know someone thought it was supposed to be pronounced like aces die and I'm sure others have thought my name was Ed and I was trying to say aces, Ed, artifical inteligence.
I wish I'd made a note of all of the best names that I've seen, but there are only a few that have stuck with me. Maybe my favorite one is Sarahbellum. When I saw that one I thought to myself anyone making clever references to a specific part of the brain is probably not an idiot. Two funny ones I remember are NuclearFart and Upay4myweed.
The main inspiration for this post though was the following name
At first I looked at it and thought "What the hell kind of name is that?" But upon closer inspection I saw that it's actually a fish blowing 3 bubbles (I can almost hear a chorus of "Ohhhhhhhh yeeaaaaahs" in the distance). Although, it's no doubt a pain in the ass to enter a username that requires heavy use of the shift key, I thought it was a neat username.
In other news April is off to a good start. Happily I've turned things around in the $1/$2 games and while I've been unable to continue the furious pace in the $2/$4 games, I'm still thrilled with how it's going so far. After 4 days I've played 5,117 hands of $1/$2 and won $1,196 (23.3 cents per hand) and I've played 4,607 hands of $2/$4 and won $849 (18.4 cents per hand). So far I'm right on track in terms of making it to 60,000 hands and making it to over $10,000 for the month.
Jen and I are both taking today off to go visit our accountant and do our taxes for 2006. AWESOME! Happily I've made some quarterly payments to the IRS and all of those massive WSOP losses are tax deductible so the damage shouldn't be too bad. But, since all I can do is guess about how much I owe it's still a little (or a lot) stressful.
I'll also be taking tomorrow off since I need a little break. I've played at least some poker for 17 straight days (12 wins and 5 losses) and I've got 7 straight full work days on my calender starting Saturday if I'm going make it to 30,000 hands before I leave for Vegas on the 15th.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
April Goals
I came down to earth a little bit yesterday when I booked my first loss over $500 since February 19th. It was the first time I decided to forget about the $1/$2 NL games games and jump into six $2/$4 NL games and I can't help wondering if I made a mistake by changing something in a system that was working so nicely.
Even with a little dip at the end March was a still success and now I'm looking ahead to April. I have a short trip to Vegas from April 15th through the 18th, (for fun, not for work) but other than that my schedule looks clear for the whole month. My goal is to play 30,000 hands of $1/$2 and 30,000 hands of $2/$4.
It still blows my mind a little when I think about how many hands I'm able to play compared to how many you can play in person. If you can make 20 cents a hand playing 6 games at a time on the Internet you're well into a six figure income. If you make 20 cents a hand in person you're making minimum wage. I've been getting in about 475 hands an hour which means in 3 hours I'm playing as many hands as you'd get in a 40 hour week. If I jumped into 8 games, which isn't crazy, I could play as many hands in a day as you'd get in a month playing full time in person.
I'll be shooting for 10 cents a hand in the $1/$2 and 20 cents a hand in the $2/$4. If I make these goals I'll pick up $9,000 plus $1,700 in FPP's. I'll keep you posted.
Even with a little dip at the end March was a still success and now I'm looking ahead to April. I have a short trip to Vegas from April 15th through the 18th, (for fun, not for work) but other than that my schedule looks clear for the whole month. My goal is to play 30,000 hands of $1/$2 and 30,000 hands of $2/$4.
It still blows my mind a little when I think about how many hands I'm able to play compared to how many you can play in person. If you can make 20 cents a hand playing 6 games at a time on the Internet you're well into a six figure income. If you make 20 cents a hand in person you're making minimum wage. I've been getting in about 475 hands an hour which means in 3 hours I'm playing as many hands as you'd get in a 40 hour week. If I jumped into 8 games, which isn't crazy, I could play as many hands in a day as you'd get in a month playing full time in person.
I'll be shooting for 10 cents a hand in the $1/$2 and 20 cents a hand in the $2/$4. If I make these goals I'll pick up $9,000 plus $1,700 in FPP's. I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
A Confusing, But Good Problem to Have
Over the past week I've continued my experiment with playing no limit cash games on pokerstars. So far my results have exceeded my expectations. After a few days of playing the $1/$2 blinds games I felt like I was doing a lot of breaking even with a little progress in the positive direction. So I decided to split the six games I was playing into three $1/$2 games and three $2/$4 games. Right away I made a few big hands in the $2/$4 games which made it easy to feel comfortable at the higher level (this is actually 1/5 the size of the biggest games I've played in, but that was over a year ago and it certainly wasn't while playing 6 games at a time).
It seemed like this was a good system so over the past several days I've been playing 3 games of each level. What's confusing to me is while I'm killing the $2/$4 games I'm breaking even in the $1/$2 games. When you double the stakes you're always going to have better players at the higher level so it doesn't make much sense that I should be winning WAY more than twice as much money against tougher players.
I have four theories, however, that might explain the disparity. The first is that while I feel I'm paying equal attention to all the games, I'm actually much more focused on the bigger games and thus able to make better decisions. The second is that the players at the higher level play much more how I'd expect them to. Perhaps at the lower level the players are playing so poorly that I'm having trouble figuring out what they have or I'm unable to manipulate them as well as better players who are thinking more. The third possibility is I might be unconsciously making riskier plays in the smaller games because the amount of money involved is less so I don't care as much if I lose. My fourth theory is that I've just been running really good in the bigger games and facing some short term bad luck in the smaller games. I suspect it's actually a combination of all of these aspects, but it still seems a little strange to me.
So how exactly have I been doing? Well over the course of 13,099 hands at the $1/$2 level I've lost $87. But, over the course of 4,373 hands of $2/$4 I've won $2,722 which is 62 cents a hand! I'm almost certain I can't keep that level of winning up in the long run, but if I could do even half that, I could make $4,500 a week. During the 17,000 plus hands I've played in the past 8 days I've also picked up about 40,000 FPP's which are worth $635 and I made a brief stop at the Oaks which netted me $375. All in all in the past 8 days I've won $3,732. SWEET!
The most important part is I've made a fundamental change in what I'm doing and that's what's bringing in all the money. If I'd just started winning more in the SNG's I wouldn't feel as good. It's the potential for future profits here that is so exciting.
It seemed like this was a good system so over the past several days I've been playing 3 games of each level. What's confusing to me is while I'm killing the $2/$4 games I'm breaking even in the $1/$2 games. When you double the stakes you're always going to have better players at the higher level so it doesn't make much sense that I should be winning WAY more than twice as much money against tougher players.
I have four theories, however, that might explain the disparity. The first is that while I feel I'm paying equal attention to all the games, I'm actually much more focused on the bigger games and thus able to make better decisions. The second is that the players at the higher level play much more how I'd expect them to. Perhaps at the lower level the players are playing so poorly that I'm having trouble figuring out what they have or I'm unable to manipulate them as well as better players who are thinking more. The third possibility is I might be unconsciously making riskier plays in the smaller games because the amount of money involved is less so I don't care as much if I lose. My fourth theory is that I've just been running really good in the bigger games and facing some short term bad luck in the smaller games. I suspect it's actually a combination of all of these aspects, but it still seems a little strange to me.
So how exactly have I been doing? Well over the course of 13,099 hands at the $1/$2 level I've lost $87. But, over the course of 4,373 hands of $2/$4 I've won $2,722 which is 62 cents a hand! I'm almost certain I can't keep that level of winning up in the long run, but if I could do even half that, I could make $4,500 a week. During the 17,000 plus hands I've played in the past 8 days I've also picked up about 40,000 FPP's which are worth $635 and I made a brief stop at the Oaks which netted me $375. All in all in the past 8 days I've won $3,732. SWEET!
The most important part is I've made a fundamental change in what I'm doing and that's what's bringing in all the money. If I'd just started winning more in the SNG's I wouldn't feel as good. It's the potential for future profits here that is so exciting.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
NL Cash games
Over the past few days I've been playing some $1/$2 blinds no limit cash games. Some of you might be thinking "Wait a minute! Aren't you supposed to be some sort of super poker stud? What the hell are you doing playing anything that involves $1 or $2 anything?"
The size of NL cash games can be a little deceiving. What happens is you start with blinds of $1 and $2, but things escalate quickly because the size of the bets you make is tied to the size of the pot. For example, let's say you're playing in a $1/$2 blinds game, you raise to $6 and get called by both of the blinds. Now there's $18 in the pot when you see the flop. At this stage if anyone is going to bet it will be somewhere in the $10-$20 range (in most cases) because if they bet much more then that they're risking too much to win the $18 in the pot and if they but much less they're making it too cheap for their opponents to continue. So let's say you bet $15 and one of the other players calls. Now we've got $48 in the pot. If you bet $40 on the turn and get called you'll have $128 in the pot. On the river if you still like your hand you might bet $75. If you get called one of you is dragging a $278 pot which all started from a grand total of $3 in blinds in a hand that didn't even have any raising after the flop.
When I played the $10/$20 blinds no limit game at the Bellagio (which is 10 times the size of the game in the example) I bought in for $1,000 and had less in front of me than any of the other players (I ended up winning $2,000 in about 4 hours but almost had a heart attack every time I played a hand). Clearly these games are a little bigger then they sound.
Anyway over the past few days I've played 7112 hands and won $584 which is 8.2 cents per hand. I'm also earning FPP's at the rate of about 2.7 cents per hand so my net profit has been about 11 cents per hand. This sure doesn't sound like much, but if you do the math it's a nice living. I've found I can play 3,000 hands a day (playing six games at a time) in about 6.5 or 7 hours of playing time. Which means at 11 cents a hand I can make $330 a day. $330 a day times 20 days a month is $6,600 a month which is $79,200 a year.
Of course the end result gets REALLY interesting when you consider that I think my actual expectation might be in the 15-20 cent per hand range instead of 11 cents per hand. Last year in January I had a streak that lasted about 3 weeks where I was playing $3/$6 blinds games (four at a time) where I made over SEVENTY cents a hand. It was like money was falling from the sky.
Anyway for now I'm going to shoot for 10 cents a hand plus the 2.7 cents a hand in FPP's. While it may sound like a lot 7,000 hands isn't a big sample and I'll need to play more to come any remotely firm conclusions. I'm planning on taking tomorrow off, but between Saturday and next Friday I'm hoping to knock out close to 20,000 hands.
In other good and interesting news I got the following e-mail from pokerstars yesterday:
Hello,
PokerStars has become aware of two players who were working together in our Sit & Go tournaments to the detriment of other players. You were involved in at least one tournament with these players and as a result you may have been adversely affected.
The players' accounts were closed and their funds frozen pending a thorough investigation, which is now complete. Fortunately the problem was identified quickly and they had only played in a few tournaments before the accounts were closed.In a case such as this it is our policy to confiscate the colluders' winnings or balances and to distribute them to the players affected by their actions in as fair a way as possible.
I regret that we will be unable to answer questions as to how your specific credit amount was calculated. Likewise, we are not at liberty to identify the specific games or players in question. Suffice to say that they have been barred from the site and you will not encounter them again.
The integrity of the games at PokerStars is of paramount importance to us and we will not abide cheating or collusion in our games. We work hard to police our games and prevent such instances. In the rare cases where collusion has actually occurred, we make sure that any players affected are compensated appropriately.
After reading this I thought "Wow I hope those bastards really screwed me over! I might really cash in here!" My dreams of huge riches were dashed when I looked at my balance. But, while not a whopping sum, the $68 I got back was certainly as splash of icing on an altogether pleasant day.
The size of NL cash games can be a little deceiving. What happens is you start with blinds of $1 and $2, but things escalate quickly because the size of the bets you make is tied to the size of the pot. For example, let's say you're playing in a $1/$2 blinds game, you raise to $6 and get called by both of the blinds. Now there's $18 in the pot when you see the flop. At this stage if anyone is going to bet it will be somewhere in the $10-$20 range (in most cases) because if they bet much more then that they're risking too much to win the $18 in the pot and if they but much less they're making it too cheap for their opponents to continue. So let's say you bet $15 and one of the other players calls. Now we've got $48 in the pot. If you bet $40 on the turn and get called you'll have $128 in the pot. On the river if you still like your hand you might bet $75. If you get called one of you is dragging a $278 pot which all started from a grand total of $3 in blinds in a hand that didn't even have any raising after the flop.
When I played the $10/$20 blinds no limit game at the Bellagio (which is 10 times the size of the game in the example) I bought in for $1,000 and had less in front of me than any of the other players (I ended up winning $2,000 in about 4 hours but almost had a heart attack every time I played a hand). Clearly these games are a little bigger then they sound.
Anyway over the past few days I've played 7112 hands and won $584 which is 8.2 cents per hand. I'm also earning FPP's at the rate of about 2.7 cents per hand so my net profit has been about 11 cents per hand. This sure doesn't sound like much, but if you do the math it's a nice living. I've found I can play 3,000 hands a day (playing six games at a time) in about 6.5 or 7 hours of playing time. Which means at 11 cents a hand I can make $330 a day. $330 a day times 20 days a month is $6,600 a month which is $79,200 a year.
Of course the end result gets REALLY interesting when you consider that I think my actual expectation might be in the 15-20 cent per hand range instead of 11 cents per hand. Last year in January I had a streak that lasted about 3 weeks where I was playing $3/$6 blinds games (four at a time) where I made over SEVENTY cents a hand. It was like money was falling from the sky.
Anyway for now I'm going to shoot for 10 cents a hand plus the 2.7 cents a hand in FPP's. While it may sound like a lot 7,000 hands isn't a big sample and I'll need to play more to come any remotely firm conclusions. I'm planning on taking tomorrow off, but between Saturday and next Friday I'm hoping to knock out close to 20,000 hands.
In other good and interesting news I got the following e-mail from pokerstars yesterday:
Hello,
PokerStars has become aware of two players who were working together in our Sit & Go tournaments to the detriment of other players. You were involved in at least one tournament with these players and as a result you may have been adversely affected.
The players' accounts were closed and their funds frozen pending a thorough investigation, which is now complete. Fortunately the problem was identified quickly and they had only played in a few tournaments before the accounts were closed.In a case such as this it is our policy to confiscate the colluders' winnings or balances and to distribute them to the players affected by their actions in as fair a way as possible.
I regret that we will be unable to answer questions as to how your specific credit amount was calculated. Likewise, we are not at liberty to identify the specific games or players in question. Suffice to say that they have been barred from the site and you will not encounter them again.
The integrity of the games at PokerStars is of paramount importance to us and we will not abide cheating or collusion in our games. We work hard to police our games and prevent such instances. In the rare cases where collusion has actually occurred, we make sure that any players affected are compensated appropriately.
After reading this I thought "Wow I hope those bastards really screwed me over! I might really cash in here!" My dreams of huge riches were dashed when I looked at my balance. But, while not a whopping sum, the $68 I got back was certainly as splash of icing on an altogether pleasant day.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Welcome Home! Here's a Kick in the Nuts!
Jen and I spent Friday through Monday in Mexico City for our friend Matt's Wedding. It was the most insane wedding that I've ever been too. You can read all about it in out family blog at http://www.thehuffs.wordpress.com/ (I'll get that post up today or tomorrow).
Today I got back to work with plans to kick ass through the end of March and into April. Unfortunately I had a terrible morning. I dropped about $800 in 3 hours over the course of 40 SNGs. At one point I had a streak of 19 straight tournaments out of the money! (my second longest streak ever). It felt like a kick in the nuts.
I had lunch and I thought "Maybe I should shift gears for a while." I decided to play 1000 hands of no limit cash games and see what happened. I jumped into six $1/$2 blinds ($200 buy-in) games. A few hours later after 1100 hands I cashed out up $500 for the afternoon and had my loss for the day down to a manageable amount. Everyone loses from time to time, but one of the keys to professional poker is not taking HUGE losses.
I can't quite recall why I haven't given the NL cash games another serious go. Last year I had my second and third best month ever playing these type of games. Of course, I followed those up with my worst month ever, but I think that was because I moved up limits too far too fast. I'm planning on playing 7500 hands in the next two days and hoping to make at least 10 cents a hand. I'll attempt to let you know what happens (the last time I promised to tell you what happened was my last post - the short version is the Sunday tournaments did not go well, sorry Matt).
In other news, my articles are up and you can read them at:
http://www.cardschat.com/poker-tells-advantage.php
http://www.cardschat.com/false-poker-tells.php
Some of you will notice the story in the second one (as well as a few other snippets) ripped off directly from this blog. I'll let you know when further writings of mine appear anywhere on the web.
Today I got back to work with plans to kick ass through the end of March and into April. Unfortunately I had a terrible morning. I dropped about $800 in 3 hours over the course of 40 SNGs. At one point I had a streak of 19 straight tournaments out of the money! (my second longest streak ever). It felt like a kick in the nuts.
I had lunch and I thought "Maybe I should shift gears for a while." I decided to play 1000 hands of no limit cash games and see what happened. I jumped into six $1/$2 blinds ($200 buy-in) games. A few hours later after 1100 hands I cashed out up $500 for the afternoon and had my loss for the day down to a manageable amount. Everyone loses from time to time, but one of the keys to professional poker is not taking HUGE losses.
I can't quite recall why I haven't given the NL cash games another serious go. Last year I had my second and third best month ever playing these type of games. Of course, I followed those up with my worst month ever, but I think that was because I moved up limits too far too fast. I'm planning on playing 7500 hands in the next two days and hoping to make at least 10 cents a hand. I'll attempt to let you know what happens (the last time I promised to tell you what happened was my last post - the short version is the Sunday tournaments did not go well, sorry Matt).
In other news, my articles are up and you can read them at:
http://www.cardschat.com/poker-tells-advantage.php
http://www.cardschat.com/false-poker-tells.php
Some of you will notice the story in the second one (as well as a few other snippets) ripped off directly from this blog. I'll let you know when further writings of mine appear anywhere on the web.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Why haven't you posted is so long?
It's been over a month since my last post on this blog and I have a few good reasons. First and foremost I haven't had much exciting or good news to share. The first two months of 2007 have been a bit of a struggle and while I haven't been losing I haven't been winning as much as I'd like either.
This Monday I had an ephiney. I used to be better at this. I used to dominate. I used to kick everyone's ass every time I logged on. How did I used to play? Once I had this thought process I realized that over the past 6 months or so I've made too many adjustments and it's thrown me off. So I went back to the philosophies and strategies that worked so well for so many years and BING, I won $1900 in 4 days. When you throw in the $1500 FPP bonus that I'm going to unlock tomorrow it's going to be a good week.
Another reason why I haven't been posting is I've used my blogging time to write a few posts on our baby/family blog www.thehuffs.wordpress.com and I've written a few actual poker articles. After hearing for a few people that I should try to get something published I did a search for "poker articles wanted" on Yahoo. This lead me to contact a fellow who runs a website www.cardschat.com. After a little back and forth we agreed that I would write something about tells and send it to him. So after all of about 2 hours I cranked out 1,200 words (almost two pages single spaced) about tells. And then the next day for good measure I wrote another similarly sized article about using and avoiding false tells. I sent them in and Nick, the guy who runs the website paid me $35 for each one. Not a mind boggling amount of money, but being able to actually get paid for something I wrote is a very satisfying feeling.
My articles are not actually on the website yet for some reason, but I have my $70 so I'm not sweating it. Also writing so much so quickly makes me wonder why in high school and college I would have to struggle for hours and hours to write 500 words. I guess writing about literature or history or whatever isn't as easy as writing about something you enjoy and know plenty about.
Poker wise I have something of interest coming up. This Sunday my good friend Matt (who is getting married in Mexico on St. Patrick's day with both E.B. and I as groomsmen) has made the offer that for the day he'll put up all the money (and pay for any loss) for me to play a myriad of tournaments and I'll take 25% of any profits (if there are profits to be had). I plan to make him regret the moment that he made the offer and blow off a few thousand of his dollars! Not really. But, I will be playing in 15-20 multitable tournaments including three $215 buy in events, one of which should have over 7,500 entrants! Hopefully I'll make at least one final table. I'll write a post about what happened sometime on Monday.
This Monday I had an ephiney. I used to be better at this. I used to dominate. I used to kick everyone's ass every time I logged on. How did I used to play? Once I had this thought process I realized that over the past 6 months or so I've made too many adjustments and it's thrown me off. So I went back to the philosophies and strategies that worked so well for so many years and BING, I won $1900 in 4 days. When you throw in the $1500 FPP bonus that I'm going to unlock tomorrow it's going to be a good week.
Another reason why I haven't been posting is I've used my blogging time to write a few posts on our baby/family blog www.thehuffs.wordpress.com and I've written a few actual poker articles. After hearing for a few people that I should try to get something published I did a search for "poker articles wanted" on Yahoo. This lead me to contact a fellow who runs a website www.cardschat.com. After a little back and forth we agreed that I would write something about tells and send it to him. So after all of about 2 hours I cranked out 1,200 words (almost two pages single spaced) about tells. And then the next day for good measure I wrote another similarly sized article about using and avoiding false tells. I sent them in and Nick, the guy who runs the website paid me $35 for each one. Not a mind boggling amount of money, but being able to actually get paid for something I wrote is a very satisfying feeling.
My articles are not actually on the website yet for some reason, but I have my $70 so I'm not sweating it. Also writing so much so quickly makes me wonder why in high school and college I would have to struggle for hours and hours to write 500 words. I guess writing about literature or history or whatever isn't as easy as writing about something you enjoy and know plenty about.
Poker wise I have something of interest coming up. This Sunday my good friend Matt (who is getting married in Mexico on St. Patrick's day with both E.B. and I as groomsmen) has made the offer that for the day he'll put up all the money (and pay for any loss) for me to play a myriad of tournaments and I'll take 25% of any profits (if there are profits to be had). I plan to make him regret the moment that he made the offer and blow off a few thousand of his dollars! Not really. But, I will be playing in 15-20 multitable tournaments including three $215 buy in events, one of which should have over 7,500 entrants! Hopefully I'll make at least one final table. I'll write a post about what happened sometime on Monday.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Moving for Poker
In response to a recent post Jake asked: If online poker goes the way of the Dodo, do you think that you might move to the peninsula/south-bay to maximize the lucky chances/bay 101 nexus?
I would say that for now we're pretty happy where we are and my first step would be to see if I could make enough at The Oaks Club. Of course, I might make a trip here and there to Lucky Chances, but I don't see myself going to Bay 101 since they have instituted a few expensive changes. Instead of time collection or raking $3 a hand they've gone to $5 a hand which is the most expensive juice I've ever seen anywhere. Secondly they have a $3 penalty (which goes in the pot) every time you miss the blinds.
If we have to leave our current house I could see looking to move a little closer to Lucky Chances. Also moving to the L.A. area would be something we'd have to give a little more thought to.
I would say that for now we're pretty happy where we are and my first step would be to see if I could make enough at The Oaks Club. Of course, I might make a trip here and there to Lucky Chances, but I don't see myself going to Bay 101 since they have instituted a few expensive changes. Instead of time collection or raking $3 a hand they've gone to $5 a hand which is the most expensive juice I've ever seen anywhere. Secondly they have a $3 penalty (which goes in the pot) every time you miss the blinds.
If we have to leave our current house I could see looking to move a little closer to Lucky Chances. Also moving to the L.A. area would be something we'd have to give a little more thought to.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
A Quick answer or two to a comment question
In a recent comment my sister posted the question: In light of this post. 1) Does this mean the big carrot is moot? 2) If you play in person, will you play for higher stakes, since you'll be forced to play less hands per hour? 3) Once you've established a reputation in person, are you worried that people will start running for the hills once they see you heading for their table? As in, "It's Dave Huff! We can't beat him! Ahhh!" It sounds funny, but it's actually a serious question.
I would say that The Big Carrot (incentives for playing a given amount in a year on pokerstars) probably won't be my focus. I've figured that it's not worth busting my hump if there's a fair chance that I won't get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Of course I'll continue to play online as long as I can and there's a good chance I'll hit a few yearly milestones, but I won't earn the supernova elite status.
When I play in person, not only is it for higher stakes, but it's a totally different game. In stead of playing no limit tournaments I'll be playing limit cash games. Since I'll only be playing in one game at a time I'll need to play much better relative to my opposition, but my focus will be undivided and I'll be doing much more of "playing the other player" instead of "playing the cards."
Of course, after a while some people will realize that I've been winning consistently. But, no one is going to avoid a game just because I'm in it. It's not like I'm going to sit down and immediately empty everyone's pockets. They might avoid a game if they saw only really good players playing in a game, but one player not matter how good they are isn't enough to have a big impact on someone else's bottom line.
I would say that The Big Carrot (incentives for playing a given amount in a year on pokerstars) probably won't be my focus. I've figured that it's not worth busting my hump if there's a fair chance that I won't get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Of course I'll continue to play online as long as I can and there's a good chance I'll hit a few yearly milestones, but I won't earn the supernova elite status.
When I play in person, not only is it for higher stakes, but it's a totally different game. In stead of playing no limit tournaments I'll be playing limit cash games. Since I'll only be playing in one game at a time I'll need to play much better relative to my opposition, but my focus will be undivided and I'll be doing much more of "playing the other player" instead of "playing the cards."
Of course, after a while some people will realize that I've been winning consistently. But, no one is going to avoid a game just because I'm in it. It's not like I'm going to sit down and immediately empty everyone's pockets. They might avoid a game if they saw only really good players playing in a game, but one player not matter how good they are isn't enough to have a big impact on someone else's bottom line.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Some bad news for online poker
In the past week or so online poker has taken another blow and this one has me more worried. About a week ago the two heads of Neteller (the leading third party that arranged transfers from banks to online poker sites) were arrested and charged with money laundering. A day or two after, Neteller stopped transactions to and from all gambling websites. Shorty after, a few other businesses that did roughly the same thing also stopped serving U.S. customers.
There are still a few ways to get your money in and out, but most of them involve a long wait instead of the instant transfers. I've had the websites mail me regular checks in the past and it's as easy as pie, but I can't see too many people making deposits via western union or money order. I suspect that pretty soon the games will start to dry up as the casual players decide that it's not worth the hassle.
While it felt for a while that the law that passed would be generally neglected, it now seems that it has some teeth. If I had to put a time table on it, I would say that by the end of the year online poker may cease to exist as we know it.
But, I'm feeling strangely fine. I'm going to try to spend most of next month back at the Oaks club and see how much I can make. I don't know how sharp my limit cash game skills are, but I used to kick ass a few years ago when I wasn't nearly as good of a poker players as I am now. And I've heard the players are much worse now than they used to be so hopefully I'll dominate from the start.
There are still a few ways to get your money in and out, but most of them involve a long wait instead of the instant transfers. I've had the websites mail me regular checks in the past and it's as easy as pie, but I can't see too many people making deposits via western union or money order. I suspect that pretty soon the games will start to dry up as the casual players decide that it's not worth the hassle.
While it felt for a while that the law that passed would be generally neglected, it now seems that it has some teeth. If I had to put a time table on it, I would say that by the end of the year online poker may cease to exist as we know it.
But, I'm feeling strangely fine. I'm going to try to spend most of next month back at the Oaks club and see how much I can make. I don't know how sharp my limit cash game skills are, but I used to kick ass a few years ago when I wasn't nearly as good of a poker players as I am now. And I've heard the players are much worse now than they used to be so hopefully I'll dominate from the start.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Biggest Carrot of All Time
After about a month of not blogging I'm back to give you the latest poker news. I always look forward to the start of a new year, because it means I can give my self a clean poker slate. It's much like a professional athlete starting a new season. And frankly 2006 was a year that I'd like to forget pokerwise. After winning almost $30,000 in the first two months of the year, I lost $11,000 in March and struggled for most of the rest of the year. Luckily 2005 was a banner year and I was smart enough to save most of what I made so not having a great year in 2006 was OK.
On January 1st pokerstars dangled a huge carrot on the end of a stick in order to entice it's supernova players to take the next step in increasing the volume of their play. In order to become a supernova player you need to earn 100,000 VIP Player Points (VPP's) in a calender year. You get 5 VPP's for every dollar in tournament juice that you pay. There are a bunch of financial benefits to being a supernova such as: entry into freerolls, faster accumulation of FPP's, special deposit bonuses and other VIP treatment. In 2006 someone made it to supernova status in just 2 weeks and by the time I made it in June there were about 120 other supernovas. By the end of the year there were close to 1,000.
Pokerstars realized that they needed something bigger and better. So they created a new level of status called Supernova Elite. In order to achieve Supernova Elite status you have to earn 1,000,000 VPP's in a calender year! This is an insane amount. Notice that in order to earn 1,000,000 VPP's you have to pay $200,000 in tournament fees which means you've bought into more than $2,000,000 worth of tournaments in one year. In 2006 I accumulated roughly 250,000 VPP's, but I spent a good deal of time playing in ways that don't generate many points (ie multitables and cash games) so the notion of 1,000,000 VPP's in a year isn't totally unthinkable.
So what they hell do they give you that would make it worth it to trade time with your friends and family for time at your computer? To start, they give you 5 FPP's for every VPP instead of the 3.5 per VPP that you earn as a regular supernova. Not too exciting, but worth mentioning. Secondly you'll get entry into some freerolls with fat prize pools. Ok, a little better. But most importantly they'll give you FREE entry into the 2008 WSOP Main event AND your choice of a pokerstars package (entry fee, hotel, airfare for 2 etc.) to the 2008 Pokerstars Caribbean adventure (a $7500 tournament in the Bahamas) or the European Poker Tour Monte Carlo (a $10,000 tournament). They'll also give you FREE entry into the $5,000 WCOOP main event online. That's over thirty grand of goodness! Talk about a big carrot!
Right now I give myself about a one percent chance of making it. But the good news is pokerstars has put in a few other bonuses along the way. When you get to 200,000 VPP's they'll give you $2,000 (there are a few hoops to jump through in terms of playing a given amount in a certain period of time, but for me it's effectively free money). At 300,000 it's another $3,000 and at 500,000 and 750,000 it's another $5,000 and $7500 respectively.
I'm certain that I'll make it to 300,000 and shouldn't have too much trouble making it to 500,000, but I think more that that is too much for me to handle. To make it to 1,000,000 I'd have to start playing $225 SNG's, and play 1,112 every month. That's 56 a day, 20 days a month. Doesn't sound too bad. The problem comes in when you consider that I'll be facing much stiffer competition, and if I have a bad day I could lose four or five grand. Also this would be a big step up for me. While I've played a few hundred $225's and 25+ tournaments with $1,000 buys-ins or more it's always been taking shots here and there. I knew I could always come back to my bread and butter. Playing 60 $225 SNG's a day every day is a big step up and I don't know if I could handle the stress.
My plan for now is to work as hard as I can and make as much money as possible. If I could knock out a few $10,000 months all of a sudden I'd be much more willing to take some chances. I could see my self doing something like setting aside $3,000 and playing $225's until it's gone. If I do well early and have a strong streak I could continue to play at that level until I could make some good estimates about my long term expectation. If I could break even that would pretty much be good enough since I'd be earning an insane number of FPP's which I could then turn into cash (if I played 1,112 a month I'd get about $4,500 worth of FPP's)
The biggest and best reason why I almost certainly won't make it is that Baby Huff Version 1.0 will be arriving on or around August 2nd. I suspect that come summer time I'll be taking on more of the household duties and if I'm up all night changing poopie diapers (and mailing them to Chris Delauder's house) I don't think I'll want to tangle with top notch competition.
To date I'm ahead about $3,000 for 2007 which is a little behind pace for how much I've been playing. I'll keep you posted on what happens for the rest of the year (if your lucky). Also if your interested in more Huff blog posts check out our baby blog at thehuffs.wordpress.com where you can learn something about babies (my wife has written most of the posts so far) and hear about non poker related Huff Stuff.
On January 1st pokerstars dangled a huge carrot on the end of a stick in order to entice it's supernova players to take the next step in increasing the volume of their play. In order to become a supernova player you need to earn 100,000 VIP Player Points (VPP's) in a calender year. You get 5 VPP's for every dollar in tournament juice that you pay. There are a bunch of financial benefits to being a supernova such as: entry into freerolls, faster accumulation of FPP's, special deposit bonuses and other VIP treatment. In 2006 someone made it to supernova status in just 2 weeks and by the time I made it in June there were about 120 other supernovas. By the end of the year there were close to 1,000.
Pokerstars realized that they needed something bigger and better. So they created a new level of status called Supernova Elite. In order to achieve Supernova Elite status you have to earn 1,000,000 VPP's in a calender year! This is an insane amount. Notice that in order to earn 1,000,000 VPP's you have to pay $200,000 in tournament fees which means you've bought into more than $2,000,000 worth of tournaments in one year. In 2006 I accumulated roughly 250,000 VPP's, but I spent a good deal of time playing in ways that don't generate many points (ie multitables and cash games) so the notion of 1,000,000 VPP's in a year isn't totally unthinkable.
So what they hell do they give you that would make it worth it to trade time with your friends and family for time at your computer? To start, they give you 5 FPP's for every VPP instead of the 3.5 per VPP that you earn as a regular supernova. Not too exciting, but worth mentioning. Secondly you'll get entry into some freerolls with fat prize pools. Ok, a little better. But most importantly they'll give you FREE entry into the 2008 WSOP Main event AND your choice of a pokerstars package (entry fee, hotel, airfare for 2 etc.) to the 2008 Pokerstars Caribbean adventure (a $7500 tournament in the Bahamas) or the European Poker Tour Monte Carlo (a $10,000 tournament). They'll also give you FREE entry into the $5,000 WCOOP main event online. That's over thirty grand of goodness! Talk about a big carrot!
Right now I give myself about a one percent chance of making it. But the good news is pokerstars has put in a few other bonuses along the way. When you get to 200,000 VPP's they'll give you $2,000 (there are a few hoops to jump through in terms of playing a given amount in a certain period of time, but for me it's effectively free money). At 300,000 it's another $3,000 and at 500,000 and 750,000 it's another $5,000 and $7500 respectively.
I'm certain that I'll make it to 300,000 and shouldn't have too much trouble making it to 500,000, but I think more that that is too much for me to handle. To make it to 1,000,000 I'd have to start playing $225 SNG's, and play 1,112 every month. That's 56 a day, 20 days a month. Doesn't sound too bad. The problem comes in when you consider that I'll be facing much stiffer competition, and if I have a bad day I could lose four or five grand. Also this would be a big step up for me. While I've played a few hundred $225's and 25+ tournaments with $1,000 buys-ins or more it's always been taking shots here and there. I knew I could always come back to my bread and butter. Playing 60 $225 SNG's a day every day is a big step up and I don't know if I could handle the stress.
My plan for now is to work as hard as I can and make as much money as possible. If I could knock out a few $10,000 months all of a sudden I'd be much more willing to take some chances. I could see my self doing something like setting aside $3,000 and playing $225's until it's gone. If I do well early and have a strong streak I could continue to play at that level until I could make some good estimates about my long term expectation. If I could break even that would pretty much be good enough since I'd be earning an insane number of FPP's which I could then turn into cash (if I played 1,112 a month I'd get about $4,500 worth of FPP's)
The biggest and best reason why I almost certainly won't make it is that Baby Huff Version 1.0 will be arriving on or around August 2nd. I suspect that come summer time I'll be taking on more of the household duties and if I'm up all night changing poopie diapers (and mailing them to Chris Delauder's house) I don't think I'll want to tangle with top notch competition.
To date I'm ahead about $3,000 for 2007 which is a little behind pace for how much I've been playing. I'll keep you posted on what happens for the rest of the year (if your lucky). Also if your interested in more Huff blog posts check out our baby blog at thehuffs.wordpress.com where you can learn something about babies (my wife has written most of the posts so far) and hear about non poker related Huff Stuff.
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