Matt at the WSOP

My friend Matt Lessinger has made it through day 1 and day 2 at the WSOP main event! Here's the e-mail he sent me summing up the conclusion of day 2 action:

Hi all,

OK, two days down. I made it past Day Two, and I start Day Three in about half an hour. Yesterday was a real struggle, including (as I told Dave in a phone call at the break) playing at what I consider to be the toughest table of players I've ever faced. I am very happy to draw for a new table today and take my chances with some new opponents.

I hovered between 30,000 and 50,000 for most of the day, but right near the end, I had a hand that worked out well. I picked up two black aces. Someone raised to 3,200, I made it 8,000, and he called. The flop came K-Q-3 all diamonds. He checked, and I bet 12,000, which basically committed me to the pot, since I had only about another 25,000 left. He sat and thought for a while, and he looked like he was really struggling with what to do. I didn't think it was an act. Finally he shrugged and said, "OK, I'm all in." I thought briefly, but figured that he most likely hand was A-K with the ace of diamonds, and I had to go with my aces. I called, and was thrilled to see that he had A-K with the ace of hearts, so the only thing that could save him was one of the two remaining kings. They didn't come, so I doubled up to about 90,000 in chips.

As it turns out, I didn't pick up a single hand in the last 45 minutes that followed, so I ended Day Two with 82,000 in chips. That's slightly below average, and slightly below my goal of 100K going into the day, but all-in-all I'm fine with it.

There are about 1,350 players left, and the top 666 make it into the money. At this point, realistically my chances of finishing in the money are about 40%. In order to do it, I need to make it through all of today, and with the blinds starting at 800-1,600 and going up from there, I will obviously need to win some decent pots to make it through the day. But so far so good, and I'll try to continue the upward movement.

Thanks again to Jeremy for making the trek to the Rio to give his support each day. Thanks to Alan for going clothes shopping for me at 1 AM when I realized I had no clothes left for today's tournament. And thanks to Timmy for stopping by on his way out of town.

I'll let you know how today went. Hopefully we'll all have a little more money in our pockets at that time.

Regards,
Matt


Just a reminder that I have 10% of his action! 666th place pays $21,000 so it will be a great pay day for us both if he can make it that far. You can check out other details of the main event at www.pokerpages.com. I'll put up a post when he goes broke or makes the money.

Double FPP Recap

Day 6 of the Pokerstars double point promotion was a total disaster. I ended up losing about $2,600 and I didn’t make it to my daily goal of 10,000 points.

The day started off poorly, but it was a slow drain. I found myself down $1,000 after a few hours, but wasn’t feeling too bad about it. I was losing, but it was a combination of not much in the way of good cards for me and plenty of good cards for my opponents. That kind of losing is easy for me to handle.

The type of losing that I have trouble with is when I’m getting great cards, making big hands and losing to garbage hands that miraculously connect with the board cards. Or when people are bluffing on flop and the turn and I’ve decided to call them down with a marginal hand and then they improve just enough to beat me on the end.

For example there was a hand where I raised with 88 and got called by the big blind who had 97. The flop was K 5 3, he checked I bet and he called with no pair and no draw. The turn was a 2 and he check raised me with no pair and no draw and then the river came a 9 and he bet and I called. There were plenty of other hands in a short span that had a similar script.

As a result I went from irritated to angry to super duper mega pissed off over the course of about 20 minutes. During that span I played about 250 hands, took 26 to the showdown and lost 20 of them (normally I’d expect to win about 15 of those hands instead of 5). The thing that’s critical about pots at showdown is they are almost never small pots. In the games I’m playing in you can just about always expect a raise before the flop and at least one bet on every betting round. So in a $10/$20 game that’s a pot size of at least $140. If I win 15 of those pots instead of 5 I’ve got at least another $1,400. Smartly I decided in a fairly reasonable amount of time that I was in no state of mind to keep playing and quit for the day.

While the day was a real disaster, the week was a moderate success. Luckily since I’d overshot in point production on the early days of the week even though I didn’t make it to 10,000 on the last day I did manage to surpass my goal of 60,000 points in the 6days. And although I lost about $600 in the actual play I still made a few grand as a result of the insane number of points I earned. I took the past two days off and I'm ready to get back on the horse tomorrow.

In other news my good friend Matt Lessinger has made it through day 1 at the WSOP main event! There were a total of 6,844 entrants at this years main event who all in one way or another put up $10,000 to play. Given the massive number of players the first day of play was split into four groups who played on four different days. Matt played on Day 1D (which was Sunday, with Saturday being 1C, Friday being 1B and Thursday being 1A) and of the 2,461 players who started that day 1352 made it through. After starting with 20,000 chips Matt was up to about 45,000 at the end of his first day of play. Today was day 2A where everyone who survived on day 1A and 1B came back for their second day of action. Matt's second day will be tomorrow (Wednesday). Anyone who makes it through day 2A and 2B will be back on Thursday and the players who make it about half way through that day will be in the money. Good luck Matt!

Halfway to Glory

During my double FPP extravaganza I've crossed over the 500,000 point mark for the year meaning I'm a little more than half way home! In fact at the end of Sunday in order to be on pace I need to be at 513,661. I expect for the first time since January 1st I'm going to be on pace to make my goal.

In the five days I've played so far I've managed at least 10,200 points a day and I'm ahead about $2,000 in actual game play. With only one more day left I plan to have my biggest production day ever and then take a few days off! Looking back Sunday will be the 22nd day in a row that I've worked! But since I've made about $12,000 in that time I guess it's been worth it.

2X FPP's Day 2 & 3

So far this double points stuff has been great! On day 2 I managed 10.600 points and a moderate but not insignificant profit of $225.

Today I blew it out with a profit of $1,800 to go along with 10,200 points. Amazingly I felt like I was getting my ass kicked all day, but I had a few 10 minute bursts where I got crazy hot and at the end of the day it all added up to a nice win.

So far in 3 days I've put 32,000 points toward my year end goal. That's the eqivalent of about 2 weeks of moderate effort. It's also generated FPPs worth $1,682 to go along with my $3,000 in winnings. While the effort required has been draining, so far it's completely worth it. This is shaping up to be a very profitable week!

WCOOP 2008!!!

They announced the schedule for the World Championship of Oniline Poker (WCOOP) today. Last year there were 23 events up from 18 the year before. This year there are going to be 33 events!

In addition to ramping up the number of events they've added a few HUGE buy in events. There's a $10,000 NL hold em, a $10,000 HORSE event and an insane $25,000 heads up matches tournament! They've guatanteed a 1.6 million dollar prize pool for the $25K which means they'll need at least 64 players. A tall order for the biggest buy in event in online poker history!

Of course there are a slew of $215, $320, and $530 events that I plan on playing. At first glance I think I'm going to be playing at least 15 events this year. More to come on the WCOOP as we get a little nearer to the start date of Sept 5th.

If you want to see the full schedule here it is http://www.pokerstars.com/wcoop/

Quick Update (2X FPPs Day 1)

I managed to play more hands today than I've ever played in one day before. I played 5,046 hands today and earned about 11,200 points (I played a mix of four $5/$10 games and two $10/$20 games). If I could earn this many points whenever I wanted it would only take me 89 working days to make my yearly goal of 1,000,000.

Those points translate into 39,200 FPPs which are worth $589. Not bad for one days effort. I also made just over $1,000 in actual winnings so it was nothing short of a great start to my week. I'm certainly tired, but feeling a little better than I expected. It's looking like this double FPP madness is going to take me all the way to back on pace for the year!

My goal tomorrow is to play at least 5,047 hands!

Some Unusual Good News

June while still somewhat profitable turned out to be my worst month since January. A big reason for that was the minor loss at the WSOP and perhaps more importantly the 9 days I wasn't playing online. But there is good news!

First of all my good friend Matt Lessinger won his was into the WSOP main event in a $55 with rebuys direct qualifier! Congrats Matt! Of course I am insanely jealous. But, happily I had 10% of his action, so for a relatively small investment I now have 10% of his action in the main event (a $1,000 value). Hopefully he'll do something big!

Second, pokerstars is running a promotion offering double FPPs from now until July 6th! This means for doing the same stuff I would be doing I'm going to earn double points towards my year end goal as well as double FPPs to be cashed in for dollars. This is HUGE. Right now I'm at 443,000 points for the year and since we're at the exact half way point I should be at 500,000.

I am going to go TOTALLY BANANAS this week. Don't expect to see or hear from me until July 8th (on July 7th I anticipate being a drooling zombie blob if my brain has not actually exploded). My goal is to knock out 30,000 points which will then be doubled to 60,000 points. Those points alone will be worth $3,152 without even factoring in progress towards the year end goal! Clearly with dollars coming in at that rate FOR BREAKING EVEN I need to do as much as I can. I'm hoping I can find the mental strength to do even more that my above goal, but I'll be happy if for once I can hit a goal I've posted on this blog.

Wish me luck! I won't keep you posted until after the fact since every second I spend in front of the computer will be spent playing!

A Tale of Two Sets

I started today by getting my ass kicked just about every way you can imagine. In fact there was one pot that I won, but it felt like I'd lost about $120 on the hand. I'm sure you're all thinking "How can that be?!?! Dave must have hit the Grand Mariner before writing this post!"

Let me explain. I was playing four $10/$20 games this morning and one of them was a spectacular game (especially for a Thursday morning). There were these two goofs in the game who were playing all kinds of garbage hands and going nuts with them. And they were both killing me. Whenever I was in it seemed like they were nailing their hands. Then the following hand came up. Goof 1 raised from the button, goof 2 three bet from the small blinds, I called from the big blind with 88 and goof 1 capped it.

I wasn't really sure where I stood, but when the flop came down 8 4 3 I started to drool. "Ah ha!" I thought triumphantly. "Now these goofs are going to pay! I'll cut them to pieces with my mighty set of eights!" Then to my total shock and horror goof 2 (who was first to act after the flop) timed out and folded (In the games I play in you have 14 seconds to act on your hand or you're out - it's kind of a brutal format, but it keeps the games moving quickly)! I couldn't believe it. I was thinking I would get AT LEAST $70 from him no matter what he had and instead I got zero.

After goof 2 folded I bet, the flop, turn and river and goof 1 folded to my river bet meaning I only made $30 after the flop. While I was trying to convince myself that maybe I wouldn't have gotten that much out of goof 2 he typed in the chat box "Thank God! I had KK and was so pissed that I folded!" BASTARDS! I'm guessing I would have gotten $30 or $40 from both players on the flop, $60 or $80 on the turn from goof 2 and $20 on the river. Even though I won the pot that hand sucked.

Now on to a much better hand. I was losing $2,200 by lunch today (I was just thinking to myself this morning how it had been a long time since I'd had a really big loss - now why would I tempt the universe by thinking that?) which also sucked. After lunch I thought I might play a little $15/$30 along with my normal $10/$20 games in an attempt to get some of my money back, but the games were loaded with regulars and pros.

Just for fun I decided to see who was playing $30/$60 even though I wasn't going to play. A few of the games looked OK, but one looked great. There was no one I recognized except for one guy who is a big loser at the $10/$20 games. I decided to take a chance and bought in for $3,000 (I was also in for $1,000 in each of three $10/$20 games). After about 18 seconds I was down to $2,500 in the $30/$60, not doing great in the other games and stuck about $3,000 for the day. SHIT!

But then I picked up AK three times in about 20 hands and won with all three. I was back to about $3,400 and I'd determined that the game was even better than I'd hoped. There were three guys who were constantly just calling before the flop which is a sign of real suckers in a short handed game.

Then I picked up TT on the button. Sure enough the first player to act just called $30 another player called behind him and I raised as I was thinking how great the game was. The big blind called and the original caller made it $90 to go. This made the alarm bells go off big time (ALERT! ALERT! We might have pocket aces!). The vast majority of the time people just call before the flop and then reraise it's AA in their hand. I called as did the other players and we took the flop 4 way.

While I was thinking about how sure I was that that one player had AA the flop came down T 3 3 and all of a sudden I was desperately hoping I was right! I almost couldn't believe it. I had to slow play a little here so I checked. To my insane delight the big blind and the original caller went to war with a bet, a raise, a reraise and a cap while I just called along! I thought to myself "Holy shit! I've flopped tens full against pocket aces and trip threes in an F-ing $30/$60 game! Yeah Baby!"

The turn was a Q which wasn't a great card, but I was pretty sure anything but an ace or a three was safe. I checked, the big blind bet $60, the other player just called and I raised to $120. Now the big blind went all in for a total of $175 which was great because it got the money in, but if he'd had more there's a chance the other player would have folded. Since it wasn't a full bet I couldn't raise again, but I did bet the river and got called. Sure enough I was up against AA and 7 3! I'd like to give the guy with 73 a little shout out and thank him for not folding before the flop (and for the $385 that he donated to me)! That pot was about $1,300 when it got pushed into my stack and I left the $30/$60 with a $1,400 profit in that game.

While I was done in the $30/$60 (the busted player and one other softy left and were replaced with some real players) I kept playing my other games and managed to cut my days losses all the way back down to about -$450. While I started the day with a win that felt like a loss with the set of 8's I finished they day with a net loss that feels almost like a win.

A Fe w Comment Responses

First of all thanks to those of you who post comments. I love feed back on my posts as well as questions.

A while back now my sister asked:

I have 2 questions: First, when you went to the 1st WSOP, I remember you talking about being pretty nervous. There was a guy in the elevator with you who looked like he might crap his pants, if I remember correctly. Are you nervous this time around? Or is this getting easier and easier?

Second, since you play online mostly, you don't have to worry about tells. Are you worried about that at all now, or is a poker face easier to hold when you're only playing one hand at a time versus eight? Or does that have nothing to do with it?

Great questions! The most nervous I've ever been in my entire life was when I read a poem that I wrote for a girl to her as a way of asking her out when I was 16. About a third of the way into it I could tell by the look on her face that she was NOT receptive to my advances and was trying to figure out what the hell to say to me when I was done.

A close second was the first time I played a big buy in tournament. It was a $1,500 tournament at the L.A. Poker Classic in 2004 and before that my biggest tournament ever was a $215 buy in. I got pocket kings on the second hand and if you had a heart rate monitor on me I'd bet my pulse was around 175! While I was pretty nervous at my first WSOP after an hour or so I felt pretty comfortable and since I made the money in my first event ever I'd say the nerves didn't get the best of me.

This year I wasn't nervous at all. I think part of that is this was my fourth year at the WSOP and I've played close to 50 tournaments with buy ins over $1,000. I feel like I belong in those games, I know I'm good enough, and I expect that eventually I'll nail one of these babies for big money! It doesn't hurt that I've been having a strong year in the cash games so I wasn't really sweating the money.

As far as tells go, I'm always surprised how I get back into the groove after a long time away from in person games. It's hard for me to detect how much information I'm giving away, but as far as picking it up goes, I feel like I had great reads on my opponents for my entire stay at the WSOP. I'm always amazed when I play in person how much information people are giving away. If only I could play 500 hand an hour I'd play in person all the time!

Now on to another comment topic: the one Sunday I spent in Vegas. While I glossed over it originally I would like to say that it was great fun hanging out with my sister in law Kristen and her boyfriend Matt. While there were so many good times during that day that I could hardly mention them in one blog post I will point out the one major highlight which E.B. alluded to in his comment.

After I don't know how many hours of Pai Gow, Kristen, Matt, E.B. and I moved over to the craps table at the Paris. After a few bad shoots it was time for Kristen to roll the dice. For those of you who don't know anything about craps essentially one person keeps rolling the dice until they roll a 7. The longer a shoot goes on the better it is and the more numbers 4-10 that you repeat the better it is.

Before they pushed the dice to Kristen she warned us that it was going to be an amazing shoot and only a fool would do anything but bet more than they normally would. E.B. took this advice and instantly decided to double all of his normal bets which are already pretty sizable. I also decided to go from reserved mode to full out mode and since I'd been getting my ass kicked at Pai Gow and craps I was ready for a big turn around. That's exactly what I got.

Kristen then proceeded to roll 4,5,6,8,9 and 10 AT LEAST 3 times each (some of them hit 7 or 8 times) without ever rolling a 7. Given that there's a 16% chance of rolling a 7 on any given roll and it is the most likely roll this was a pretty amazing feat. Good work Kristen!

As as result of this shoot and the fact the E.B. won 9 out of 10, $100 bets that he placed on Kristen's hand at the Pai Gow table he's promised her a free room in Vegas any time that he's in town. Given the comps that E.B. gets at just about all the hotels in Vegas this amounts to the owner of a deli offering a free ham sandwich, but I know it's still appreciated by Kristen.

Thanks for the comments!

Non Poker Vegas Recap!

While the main purpose of my recent trip to Vegas was poker, there was a lot more going on during my stay.

I got to Vegas on Tuesday, played poker Wednesday and Thursday and after my money finish Thursday night I hooked up with my good friend (and original gambling mentor) E.B. at the Rio. My plan was to have one beer and play $25 a hand Pai Gow for about an hour or so before calling it a night. That plan lasted about 45 seconds.

While I did manage to have that one beer, I followed it with a shot of Grand Mariner every 15-20 minutes for the next few hours. Of course that whole $25 a hand business went out the window just as quickly and before I knew it I was drunk as a skunk with $200 on each of two hands! Amazingly I kept the damage to about -$500.

This was the beginning of what if things were going poorly you would call a massive Grand Mariner fueled bender. I gambled straight from late Thursday (or technically early Friday) until late Sunday (or technically early Monday) only stopping to eat and sleep. It was a pretty amazing thing to think back on and the only reason it went on like that was I was actually winning!

On Friday I checked into the Bellagio and met up with E.B., Jake, Chrissy, Jean, Chrissy's brother James, and eventually Jen. We spent most of the day playing Pai Gow and craps and everyone had pretty break even luck but lots of fun.

Saturday on the other hand was one of my top two or three of the 50+ days (it might be as many as 75) that I've spent in Vegas. After a late breakfast (still at the Bellagio) the ladies all went shopping and the men made their way to the Let it Ride table. Let it Ride is one of those games that the house has such a huge edge in that you can almost feel them sucking the money out of your pockets. But it's fun to play and if things go well they can go well in a hurry. They did and I picked up my first $500 of the day which was pretty amazing given it was a $10 table!

After a few hours of Letting it Ride, we jumped one table over to play black jack. I've played about 5 hours of black jack in my entire life so this was a little out of character. While black jack doesn't have a huge house edge it moves VERY fast and a streak in one direction or the other can leave your head spinning. Luckily I had a streak in the right direction betting between $25 and $75 a hand and left with another $500.

Then it was on to Pai Gow. This is our group's favorite casino game and we parked it there for quite a while. About 8 o'clock we started to think about dinner and decided to go big. By 8:15 we had a 9 o'clock (what are apparently hard to come by) reservation at Prime which is the steak house at the Bellagio.

The pit boss who'd made the reservations then told us that there was a dress code which was no tennis shoes and a collared shirt. Chrissy's brother (who was there because it was a gift from Chrissy) is a casual guy and had only tennis shoes and T-shirts with him. Also given the fact that he makes $8 an hour he was not in a position to run out at the Bellagio and buy himself some shoes.

But given that I was ahead about $1,700 on the day at that point and had been betting between $50 and $250 on single hands of Pai Gow for the previous 100 hands or so I decided I was going to buy James some shoes and a shirt. If nothing else I was sure he would remember where he got those shoes!

So we went off on a mission with about 40 minutes to find shoes and a shirt and make it to Prime by 9:00. E.B. and Jake came with us since for moral support and also because Jake needed a shirt as well. After a short jaunt into the Bellagio shops it was clear that they weren't going to suit our needs. While I was feeling generous we weren't going to find anything in our price range at Armani, Gucci, or Louis Vuitton.

So it was off to the Forum shops at Caesar's! After walking into a men's shoes store where the first pair of shoes I picked up cost $1,100, we decided to ask for some direction. Eventually we made our way to a place called The Walking Company where we found a wonderful sized 10 pair of shoes for $80 and after a quick trip over to the Gap for a $20 shirt we were in business.

By 9:05 we were all at the table at prime looking sharp. The steak I had there was maybe the best I've ever had which is saying something given how many steaks I've had in plenty of very nice restaurants. I guess that's what you get when you pay $60 for a fillet!

After dinner it was time for guess what? More gambling! We made out way over to the Paris and hit the craps table. Some amount of time later which could have been 1 hour or 4 hours, between Jen and I were were up $2,300 and I was up $3,900, a pair of shoes and a shirt on the day!

Sunday was another fairly break even day which in Vegas when you gamble all day is a success. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but costly as far as non poker gambling goes. I'm very good about keeping things in check when the luck goes south so I didn't blow back too much, but a good chunk of that $3,900 didn't make it home with me.

What's great is I pumped A TON of action through the casinos. Contrary to popular belief when they're giving out free rooms and other comps they don't care if you win or lose. They're only interested in your average bet size and the duration of your play. They know they're going to get you in the end so all they care about is how much you're willing to risk. I'm hoping to have a pretty nice train of free rooms lined up for the foreseeable future.

While it wasn't a profitable trip per se, it could have been much worse and I'm happy with the results. I now have 3 WSOP cashes in 19 tries and every time I go back I like my chances more and more. Thanks again for all of the good luck wishes and support from my friends and family!

The next big thing on the horizon is the WCOOP in September which will no doubt lead to a flurry of blog posts. For now it's back to the online cash games. I picked up a nice $1,200 win today so I'm actually feeling pretty good about getting back to my normal schedule. I'll try to keep you posted on any interesting happenings in my poker life!