You'll have to wait

I played a long, long tournament today and I'm too tired to write all the details, but it was an interesting event. I don't want to ruin the drama so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what happened. I promise to have a post up by 5 pm at the latest, and will try to do it in the late morning or early afternoon.

On Dinner Break

I'm on dinner break in the WCOOP $215 with rebuys. I have 40,738 chips and the average stack is 39,501. I'm in 220th place and like my chance of making the money. Wish me luck! If you want to watch you can go to pokerstars.com, download the software and search for ACESEDAI by clicking on the "requests" section at the top and selecting "find a player".

WCOOP Event #9 Underway

We started event #9 ( $215 with rebuys) with 2,188 players. The prizes won't be displayed until the end of the rebuy period. The good news is I managed to win my initial buy in via satellite. I played two $8 with rebuys turbo satellites and managed to win a seat in one of them. So essentially I got into today's event for $48 instead of $215.

I also played three $60, 45 player tournaments and finished in 2nd in one ( I should have won this one - I had my opponent all in and was a 6.5 to 1 favorite with one card to come and I lost) and 3rd in another which made me about $750. I'm having a good day so far!

An Almost WCOOP Satellite

I pretty much took the day off today, but while sitting around on the couch I couldn't help but play a tournament or two. My only WCOOP related action was an $80 satellite to Sunday's $1,050 NL tournament.

We started with 66 players with the top 4 winning a seat. This wasn't a turbo tournament and with 15 minute limits it took a few hours for things to come to a head. With 14 players left the average stack was just over 7,000 and I had 6,500 chips. The blinds were 300/600 with a 50 chip ante when I picked up AQ of diamonds in early position. I raised to 1,800 and one player called behind me. The flop came down QJ9 with two clubs.

I had mixed feelings about this flop. On one hand I had top pair with top kicker. On the other with a bunch of big cards bunched close together I could be against a better hand or a big draw. I bet 2,400 figuring I might get action from a hand like AJ, AK, KQ or any hand with a T or two clubs. If I was up against a hand that had me beat, there was nothing I could do.

Unfortunately my opponent who had about 6,000 chips at the start of the hand moved all in and even though I didn't really like my hand any more I was committed to the hand since I'd already put so many chips in the pot. Sadly my opponent flipped over AA and took down the pot when no help came for me.

While only the top 4 spots paid $1,050, 5th-11th paid $80 and 12th paid $58. I was down to about 500 chips (less than one big blind) and no one else was under 4,000 so I figured the chance of losing 2 more opponents before I went broke was close to zero. But, then I picked up AA and my stack jumped to 1,700. A hand or two later I moved all in with KJ and got called by 66. I made a straight and was up over 4,000. Three people went broke, I stole the blinds a few times pushing my stack to over 6,000, and I thought I might stage a miraculous comeback.

Then I went broke. I moved all in with AT and ran into AK. Oh well. At least I got back the $80 that I invested.

A Sub Par Effort

I ended up finishing 710th in today's $215 limit hold'em WCOOP event. I felt like I played great and got plenty of good cards for the first two and half hours or so. I had my starting stack of 3,000 up to about 7,500 at one point and was liking my chances of making it to the money. Then my run of good cards dried up, I overplayed a few hands and I found myself with fewer chips than I started to tournament with. Eventually as the limits increased and I got very short short stacked, I was forced to make a move with KQ and wound up against AQ. No miracles materialized and my WCOOP day was over.

No one hand in particular stands out to me, but it seemed like in the third hour I got plenty of hands like AK, AQ or KQ and never managed to make a pair. One thing that's a little different about playing limit poker tournaments is good luck early doesn't do much of anything for your overall chances (of course in no limit it's better to be lucky later on as well, but it's MUCH easier to make significant headway in the early rounds). If I'd had the crappy cards and bad luck in the first hour and the run of big pocket pairs and other solid cards that I had in the first hour in the third or fourth hour, then not only would I still be playing but I'd be in great shape.

In other poker news, I had one good result today and another almost. I played a few $60, 45 player turbo tournaments today and managed to win one outright. When we were down to 7 players everyone was about even. Then I busted two people and found myself with an overwhelming chip lead. At one point playing 5 handed I had 45,000 chips while all four of my opponents combined had 22,500. It was easy to grind them down and my victory was almost never in doubt. 1st place paid $770, but that was just one of seven $60 tournaments that I played so it's really not that exciting. It was fun though.

The almost came in a $22 with rebuys tournament. We started with 423 players and when we were down to 19 I had about 70,000 chips with the average stack around 50,000. I was in the big blind with A9 and blinds of 2,000/4,000. The small blind had about 30,000 and moved all in. I figured he could have just about anything and this was a good spot to take a risk. I called and he showed me J8. I was good until the river when an 8 showed up.

On the very next hand I was in the small blind with my remaining 40,000 chips and AK suited. The same guy moved all in (which was a little excessive) with QT. I instantly called. A 10 came on the flop and I was out in 19th. If I'd been able to win the first pot I would have been in 4th chip position and the second one would have put me in 7th or 8th. Either way I'd be in great shape to make the final table where first place paid $4,500 and anything in the top 5 was worth at least $900. Instead I only profited $56 (one more spot would have paid another $50 - not huge money, but enough to be annoyed about).

A few other things about this tournament irritate me a little. First of all it's not like the hands I lost to were anything special. Probably 80% of players would have just folded BOTH of them before the flop which would have saved me. Secondly it sucks to play 300+ hands over the course of more than 4 hours and get snapped off in two hands where you're ahead back to back after all that time. I guess I've had worse things happen to me 1,000 times in my poker career so it's really not a big deal, but it's never fun.

The best news is it seems like I'm really hitting my stride. Finishing 19th out of 423 and 1 of 45 is pretty good even if I didn't have a huge day monetarily (I won a few hundred though). If feel like if I keep giving myself chances I'll make more final tables and have more big pay days.

My next WCOOP action is going to be $215 no limit hold 'em with rebuys on Thursday. Here's a brief description of how rebuy tournaments work in case some of you aren't familiar with them. As long as you have the number of chips you stared with or less, you can buy more chips for the same cost as the original tournament buy in, less the juice. So in this case we'll start with 3,000 chips. Anytime I have 3,000 chips or less I can buy another 3,000 for $200. At the end of the first hour all players regardless of their chip stack can do a special rebuy called an"add on" where they get 5,000 chips for $200.

The classic strategy in rebuy tournaments is to rebuy as soon as you sit down and buy more chips any time it's legal to do so. Furthermore it almost always makes sense to do the add-on. If that's your plan you're looking at at least $615 and usually more like $815 or $1015. I still have $1,515.60 of the $2,000 bankroll that I have earmarked for the WCOOP and I'd like to hang on to as much as I can, so I'm going to play a little more conservatively. I'm just going to do the initial buy in and the add on. I'll have slightly fewer chips than most of my opponents, but I should get in for $415. If I go broke once early I'll do one rebuy and end up in for $615, but in the unlikely event that I go broke twice early, I'm just going to surrender.

I really want to play the $1,050 NL event next Sunday because 1st place in that event is going to be $500,000+ , but unless I make the money in one of these early event's I won't be able to swing it. I'm going to play $215 HORSE and $530 pot limit hold'em on Saturday for sure and I'm hoping I can at least make the money in one of those or Thursday's event. If not I'll probably take whatever I've got left and try to get in the $1,050 via satellite.

WCOOP Event# 7 Start

WCOOP event #7 ($215 limit hold'em) started with 2,059 entrants 1st place of $80,795, 5th place of $18,407, 18th place of $2,347, 63rd place of $947 and 270th place of $411. The best thing about limit hold'em tournaments is you can't go broke on one hand early. In fact you'd really have to try to go broke during the first 2 hours. The downside is they feel like they take forever since not much happens at the beginning. I'll let you know how it all went down.

The Deal Making Thought Process

When I was playing my tournament on Saturday I had my good friend Matt (who is also a professional poker player) on the phone with me for the entire final table. When I mentioned suggesting a deal to the other players he pretty strongly advised me against it. Yesterday I got an e-mail from E.B. who is a former poker pro questioning my decision to make a deal also. We had a bit of a back and forth that I thought was worth posting which may address some similar questions that other people might be having as well.

Here's what E.B wrote:

First of all, congratulations… well done!

I just read your blog and I am wondering about the split. The chance of the short stack going belly-up pretty quick is obviously quite high. If you assume he is going to go broke (not a given, clearly), you’re risking $2500 to lock up $1300, and that is not even counting your slight chip advantage. Why do you think that was a good split for you?

I am not judging your decision; it was certainly yours to make. In fact, I am not even saying I think it is a mistake. Really I am just curious to understand your deductive process (which may have just been simply “I’ve had a rough run… ship the money and let’s not screw around”)

All in all, having to worry about whether you’re getting the best possible result out of your splits is kind of like having to pay a shitload in taxes: it isn’t a horrible problem to have. So keep it up; if you make $50K in September, we’ll come babysit so you guys can go out and celebrate. And in the meantime, enjoy having a 5 figure month when it’s halfway through!

EB

And then I replied with the following:

I think the biggest flaw with you're argument is the notion that the player with 200K is dead. He had over 6X the big blind (blinds of 15,000/30,000) which is plenty to maneuver with. If he doubles through me once we're both at 400K and the other player is at 600K. If the player who is roughly even with me (it was 590,000 to 600,000 which means I had him by 1/3 of one big blind or 1/5 of the smallest possible pot- effectively no advantage at all) gets me in just one hand I'm out. Even if no one doubles through me, if I go card dead for even a few hands or if my opponents pick up a strong run of cards everything could change. Three handed play is VERY volatile.

If you look at the precise numbers 3rd was $3,950, 2nd was $6,375, first was $10,125. and I got paid $7,670. In my mind I was risking $3,720 to win an additional $2,455 and needing to beat two opponents to do so.

If you would guess that if we were to run the tournament out 100 times and I could score 55 wins, 35 seconds and 10 thirds (a bit of a stretch that would require total domination) then I'd win $8,195 on average. If the ratio was 45/40/15 I'd average $7,699. If it dropped to 40/35/25 I'd be looking at $7,268. Clearly by taking the deal I wasn't giving up much equity even if I was WAY better than my opponents. If I was only slightly better than them I might have even been better off with the deal.

But the real issue comes down to locking up the money when things haven't been going well. If I played it out and didn't take the deal I'd be pissed with anything less than first. I'd feel like I threw away $1,300 if I finished in 2nd and I'd be spitting mad for the rest of the day if not the rest of the month with a 3rd place finish. If I was a very professional, logical player I know that I shouldn't factor that into the equation and should take any edge I can find, but in practice that's not how I operate.

Another thing to consider is bankroll. I don't have the bankroll to be playing something with as much fluctuation as 3 handed play with huge blinds for thousands of dollars even if I was certain I had a significant edge. Even though all the results are much better than I could have hoped for when the tournament started it still comes down to three handed play with a $6,000 difference between 1st and 3rd.

Now that I have all of that out of the way I can say that I was on the phone with Matt for the entire final table and he STRONGLY advised me to NOT make a deal. His logic, which was completely sound, is that there was no way in hell the other guys had as much experience playing 3 handed with large blinds as I do. I do feel like a little bit of a pussy, but when you factor in the emotional risk/reward to the monetary aspect, the deal makes even more sense.

Here's EB's reply to my reply:

I disagree with the possible outcomes you considered. I think 50%-55% first-place finishes would be a reasonable (but high-end of reasonable, obviously) expectation for you if you all three had the same stack. Another way I look at it is the same way I’d consider buying a used car: if the other guy loves the deal, it can’t be that great for me. Using that (admittedly simple) analysis, if you were the short stack, do you think you’d have been happier with this deal than you were as the big stack (or one of them)?

But that is all math (and somewhat questionable math at that). Obviously I understand, intellectually, that there is a difference (beyond the dollars) in the effect, on your state of mind, of coming off of a 3-way split that you took the lion’s share of and taking second or third place. However, I think it is hard to comprehend the magnitude of that effect, even for me, let alone for somebody who has never won or lost a month’s expenses in an hour.

Right now, I am sure you are playing your A-game, without much chance of being easily frustrated by short-term negative results, and you are probably once again enjoying playing (I’d imagine that after a week or two of getting your nuts slammed in the door it is almost like “Do I have to do this again?”.) I literally can’t even begin to calculate the dollar value of that change, so that being said, I definitely do understand your decision, and it DOES seem reasonable.

EB

I'll post my latest comments here. First of all I think this has been a helpful dialogue for me and I want to thank EB for getting it started. I have had my doubts about making this deal, the deal I made last week in the 1,870 player tournament, and many other deals in the past. Thinking through the details and possible outcomes a little more has given me more confidence that at the very least I didn't do something significantly wrong in this case.

I have to disagree strongly with the notion that I'd be more than 50% to win if we were all evenly stacked. Nominally in that case I'd be 33% to win. Only against rank novices or players who I'd played thousands of hands against could I expect to shift my chance of wining that much from what could be expected if it was random chance. In order for me to be 50% that means each of my opponents only has a 25% chance of beating me. Keep in mind that we're not playing in a situation where the blinds are small and there is plenty of time. The blinds and antes alone amounted to 1/28 of all the chips in play. In a spot like that luck takes on a much larger roll.

I would estimate that more than half of the time I make it to heads up in the scenario in quention my opponents would bust one another rather than me busting one of them since they're likely to play looser than me. If that's true I'd have a greater than normal chance of finishing in second, but a lesser chance of winning outright. If that happened I'd be severely out chipped going into heads up play which would put me at much less than 50% to win.

I do think the notion of "If the deal is good for them, it must be bad for me" is a fair point. But I think a more fair description is, we're all agreeing to a deal that is neutral so none of us faces a negative outcome.

Interestingly enough, while my vast experience playing 3 handed is a strong asset in the situation in question, it's also what makes me want to make deals. I've been screwed so many times when I was sure I had first place locked up, that I know first hand how quickly things can go sour.

My next WCOOP event ($215 limit hold 'em) is tomorrow (Tuesday). For every WCOOP event they have a "second chance" tournament with the same game and structure that starts about 3 hours after the initial tournament goes off. Usually the second chance tournament is $215 regardless of the buy in of the initial event. In the past I've had great success playing this size tournament when it's limit hold 'em. I'd give it a 50% chance that I'll play the second chance event which I will count as WCOOP related as far as people who have a piece of my action are concerned. I'll let you know what happens.