The Full Details of Matt's WSOP main event

I know many of you followed the exploits of my good friend Matt Lessinger at this years WSOP main event. For those of you who are interested here is a very long, very detailed recap of how it all went down straight from the horse's mouth.

2008 WSOP Main Event Recap
By Matt Lessinger

This is compiled from the notes that I took during my five days in the Main Event. My thoughts will be in italics, some from the time of the tournament, some from after the fact. Suits will be denoted in lowercase; for example, Js is the Jacks of spades, 9h is the nine of hearts. 2x means a two, where the suit was irrelevant. After each hand will come my approximate chip count at the time. We started with 20,000.

Some of the notations:

SB – small blind
BB – big blind
UTG – under-the-gun, i.e. the player immediately after the blinds
VNH – very next hand, i.e. I was involved in two hands consecutively.

Day One, Level One: 50-100 blinds

-I’m in Seat One, which is good with all other things being equal. I can get a good look at the opponents to my left, whereas the ones to my right can’t see me too well.

-There are no name players at my table. In fact, it doesn’t seem as if there are any players at all. The whole table seems pretty soft.

-I win my first confrontation. One limper, I call on button w/Ks-Js, blinds call. Flop As-Jx-3s. Checked to limper, who bets 125. I make it 525, he calls. Turn 10x. I bet 800, he mucks. Up to 20,800.

-Brute aggression is clearly the way to go against this group, not finesse.

-I steal some pots here and there. Then 1.5 hours in, I pick up my first A-A. I make it 300, one caller. Flop K-4-3. I bet 600, he mucks. Up to 23K.

-A raise to 325, I call in BB w/2-2. Flop Qc-9c-2s. He bets 300, I check-raise to 900, he calls. Turn 5d. I bet 1,500, he makes it 3,000, I call. River 2x! I bet 2,000, he quickly calls (i.e. I clearly did not need the 4th deuce). Up to 29K. I never saw his hand, but it was clearly either A-A or K-K, with a slight chance of A-Q. On the turn I thought there was a decent chance I was up against a higher set, but I also thought if that was the case, he would let me off cheap because he wanted to ensure getting paid off. I did not want to reraise and risk going broke, especially when I considered it relatively easy to amass chips at this table, even if I lost a few thousand with a set. On the river, I thought the 2K bet was just right. If he had a set and filled up, I was going to get his stack anyway. And if he had only an overpair (as was the case) then the bet was small enough to get paid off. Perhaps I could have bet a little more and still gotten called.

-End of Level One: 28,925

Level Two: 100-200 blinds

-Button raises to 600, I call in BB w/J-10. Flop 10-8-7 rainbow. I bet 1,200, he calls. Turn 2. I bet 1,600, he calls. River 4, I check. Bad check here. I should have bet about 2,000. He checks and shows 9-9. Up to 32,600.

-Winning a bunch of small pots. I’m up over 35K without any hands of note.

-I encounter my first setback. Given that this was three hours into the tournament, I had no complaints. Two limpers, I make it 900 from SB w/As-6s. This was pushing it a little, but I wanted to see how much I could get away with. BB calls and limpers call, which is obviously not what I was hoping for. Flop 9d-9s-6d. I bet 2,200. BB folds, first limper makes it 5,200 to go. No one has raised on a draw yet, and I didn’t think he was doing it now. I fold, down to 31,800.

-SB limps. I make it 600 from BB w/Qd-Qh, he calls. He is by far the tightest player at the table. One of the reasons I accumulated chips so easily is that when everyone folded to him in the SB, I almost always won uncontested, either before or after the flop. This is the first time he’s called one of my pre-flop BB raises. Flop Jd-9d-4x. I bet 800, he calls. Turn Kd, we both check. River Ad! I bet 1,600 with the nut flush but he mucks. Up to 34,600.

-VNH UTG limps, next player raises to 850, I make it 2,500 from SB w/A-K. UTG folds A-K and raiser folds Ah-Qh. Cool. Up to 36,100.

-End of Level Two: 36,325

Level Three: 150-300 blinds

-UTG limps. I call in SB with Q-10. Flop Q-J-9. I bet 800, he calls. Turn an 8. I bet 1,600, he makes it 6,100. I call. River a 5. I check, he says, “I was just tryin to make a play at you, I’m sorry,” and shows A-J. I said, “You don’t have to apologize, I’ll take it!” as I show my straight. Up to 43,100. In reality, he wasn’t purposely making a move on me. What happened was that he thought he was calling my 1,600, but instead of a 500 chip he grabbed a 5,000 one, thus the 4,500 raise. In the back of my mind I thought he might be making an elaborate move on me, plus there was really nothing to be gained by re-raising, because he presumably couldn’t call without a straight, thus I chose to just call him down. I would have been happy with half the pot, since I was definitely afraid of K-10, but of course it was a bonus to find out I won the whole pot.

-Made standard raises with 7-7 and 9-9 but got reraised both times and was forced to muck. Down to 40,600. They probably had me beat, but this was also the first two times I got played back at preflop, and it took five hours for that to happen. I now had to worry that my image, (which was fantastic after the quad deuces hand), was now getting a little worse, since they were now seeing me lay down to preflop reraises.

-A-A for 2nd time, but everyone folded to me in SB. I make it 700 but BB mucks. Grr.

-I go 900 with A-K. One caller, then a reraise to 4K. I muck and they go all-in, Q-Q vs. 10-10. At that moment I was not happy I folded, but the final board came jack-high so I saved a good chunk of money. Still, down to 40,100.

-I go 900 in cutoff with 6d-5d, BB calls. Flop 5-4-2. I bet 1,200, he check-raises to 3,200, I call. Turn Q. He bets 4,500, I muck. Down to 34,800.

-I go 900 w/9h-9d, 2 callers. Flop As-Jx-8s. We all check. Turn Js. I bet 1,600, one caller. River Ks. We check, he shows Qc-Jc to win. Down to 32,700. Bad play on my part. I knew he either had a spade draw or a jack, and I should have bet to find out. If I bet the river he probably can’t call. Of course, he could have just as easily had K-J, which was part of what made me lean towards checking.

-End of Level Three: 32,475

Level Four: 150-300 blinds, 25 ante

I limp with 10-10 UTG, we get seven-way action! Flop A-A-4, we all check. Turn 7. SB bets 800, I call, everyone else mucks. River K. He bets 1,100, I call, he shows J-7. Up to 36,100. This was the beginning of the end for the SB in seat Eight. Four of the next five hands I will describe were against him.

-A-A for 3rd time. This is much better than 2006, when I went 14 hours without A-A or K-K! Cutoff in Seat Eight makes it 1K. I make it 3K from the SB, he calls. Flop 2-3-4, I bet 6K, he mucks. Up to 40,500.

-VNH he limps, and I limp from the button with A-Q. I had a strange feeling that if I raised him again, he would get frustrated and push all-in, and I didn’t want to be faced with that decision. Flop A-10-2. He bets 1K, I call, blinds muck. Turn J. He bets 1,500, I call. River 4. He bets 2,200. I groan and call. He shows A-9. I announce to the table that I played the hand like a giant pussy (and I throw in the hand signal for good measure) while I rake in the pot. Up to 46,800.

-Next round I go 900 on button with A-7, BB calls. Flop A-K-8. He bets 1,600, I make it 4,600, he mucks. Up to 50,400.

-I make it 900 UTG with Q-Q. One caller, then the SB (Seat Eight) makes it 3,000 to go. I make it 9K, which is enough to put him all-in. The player between us mucks, he calls and shows A-K, but the flop comes queen high. Booyah! He goes from 20,000 to zero in four hands against me, and I am up to 59,200.

-I make it 900 with 8-8, the button calls. Flop A-Q-6. I bet 2K, he calls. Turn 4. I bet 3,500, he calls. River Q. I put him all-in for a little more than 8K. He deliberates for about three minutes, then finally calls and shows A-K. Down to 45,600. At a table of tight players he was one of the tightest, and given his reluctance to raise on the flop or turn, I didn’t think he would have enough confidence to call all-in on the river. I actually thought he had A-J, in which case he would have had to consider the possibility that I had A-K. If I knew he had A-K I would have never done it, but even then it still almost worked, as he kept getting distracted by the river queen. “A-Q?” he asked. “K-Q? That would be sick…” Once he said that I knew he had A-K, but at that point it was too late. Thankfully I had built my stack up enough that this bad bluff only cost me 1/4th of my chips.

-Almost immediately after that hand our table broke. Double fuck! Not only will I miss getting to continue playing against this group, but if the table had broken a couple of hands earlier, I could be going to a new table with 60K instead of 45K.

-End of Level Four: 45,600

Level Five: 200-400 blinds, 50 ante

-There is much more action at my new table. In the very first hand one player got KOed and another got crippled.

-I picked up absolutely nothing for the first hour and a half. Blinded down to 42K.

-After 1:45 I stole only one set of blinds with 9-9. Then with ten minutes to go, UTG makes it 1,200, there is one caller, then I make it 5K on button with 10-10. Raiser folds, caller deliberates for like 3 minutes before turning up 6-6 and folding. Up to 45,900. He took so long that I really thought he had me beat. When he finally turned up 6-6 I had to laugh out loud. Apparently I was giving him too much credit.

-End of Level Five, End of Day One: 44,775

Day Two, Level Six: 250-500 blinds, 50 ante

-Again I start the day in Seat One, a nice advantage. It also seems like another good table draw. There are a few short stacks, and the table chip leader has only 66K.

-40 minutes in, I make it 1,600 w/Ah-Qh. Button calls, BB calls. Flop 8h-7x-5h. I bet 4K, they muck. Up to 46,800.

-UTG calls, another calls, I check in BB w/Kh-3d. Flop Ah-Jh-10h. UTG bets 2K out of turn. I call. Turn 2x. Again he bets out of turn, this time 4K. I muck, down to 43,800. He was a very inexperienced player, and I knew that he wasn’t making a move on me. I also figured that there was little or no chance of semibluffing him, therefore it didn’t seem like the right time to try anything tricky.

-I make it 1,600 w/As-Qs, one caller. Flop A-2-4 all diamonds. I bet 2,500, he calls. Turn 5s. I check. I probably should have made a small bet instead. He bets 10K, I fold. Down to 38,600.

-A-A for 4th time in tournament. I make it 1,600, button calls. Flop K-J-8 rainbow. I bet 2K, he makes it 6K, I reraise to 16K, he mucks. Up to 47K.

-I make it 1,600 UTG w/A-K. One caller. Flop A-9-3 rainbow. I check, he bets 1,700. I check-raise to 3,500, he calls. Turn 4. I bet 5K, he goes 15K, I go all-in, he mucks. Up to 66K. This was the same opponent who bet me off of As-Qs on an Ad-2d-4d-5s board. He had been fairly aggressive, and I thought I would use that against him. The check-raise on the flop was textbook. On the turn he put me to a decision, but in the end I decided that if he had me beat so be it. He had played enough hands and been aggressive enough that I could not lay down top pair/top kicker to him after having put over 10K into the pot. He claimed he laid down A-K. I give that about a 25% chance of being truthful.

-A raise to 1,200, I call w/Ah-10h. Flop 9x-8h-7h. He bets 3K, I make it 8K, he goes all-in for 11K total, I call. He shows 6-5 offsuit. Ridiculous hand, but I still have a ton of outs. Unfortunately the turn is the 4s and the river the 5c. Down to 54K. This elicited a very loud, “What the fuck??” from me, but it was highly justified. This player had played about 2 hands over the course of 2 hours, and I almost laid down my hand preflop, in light of how tight he had been playing. What made me decide to play was that I figured I could pounce on him postflop if he showed weakness. I couldn’t believe that he had folded so many hands and then decided to take a stand short-stacked with 6-5 offsuit. I guess I could be thankful that he was short-stacked, because I was going to be all-in on that flop no matter how deep he was.

-End of Level Six: 52,425

Level Seven: 300-600 blinds, 75 ante

-UTG raises to 1,600. I call with 7-7. Another caller, then the button makes it 3K to go. It was a very strange sequence. Anyway, I call, but muck after a flop of Q-J-3. Down to 49K.

-That’s the only hand I played for the entire first hour. Not even a blind steal. Down to 44,500.

-Button makes it 1,600, SB calls, I make it 6K from BB with 8-7 offsuit. Button folds immediately. SB deliberates a bit, but eventually mucks. Up to 47K. The probability that the button was stealing, combined with the fact that I hadn’t played a hand for an hour, made it necessary for me to make a play like this.

-A raise to 1,600, I make it 4,100 with J-J, he mucks. Up to 48K.

-End of Level Seven: 47,600

Level Eight: 400-800 blinds, 100 ante

-I make it 2,400 with 9-9, one caller. I bet 4K at K-6-5 flop and he mucks. VNH I pick up my 5th A-A but no action. Up to 52K.

-A raise to 2,300. I make it 6,300 from SB with Ad-Qd, he mucks. Up to 55K.

-Same guy raises to 2,300. I flat call with A-K offsuit, blinds also call. Flop 10c-9x-8c, and I muck to a 5K bet. Turns out he had 9-9. Good play, bad flop. Down to 52K.

-I make it 2,400 with Ac-Js, one caller. Flop Qx-8x-8c, we check. Turn 4c. I bet 3,500, he calls. River 6c. I bet 8K, he calls and shows 10c-9c for a flush. Down to 38K. Bad read on my part. I figured him for a pocket pair, not a club draw, especially given that I had the Ac. Given that read, I thought I could push him off of whatever he had, but obviously he was calling.

-A raise to 2,200, one caller, I call in BB with Qd-Jd, and fold to a bet after the flop comes 10-6-3. Down to 36K

-A totally dismal final hour and a half. No hands whatsoever, Didn’t play a single one.

-End of Level Eight: 29,900

Level Nine: 500-1,000 blinds, 100 ante

-Five minutes in I get moved to a new table. I am easily the shortest stack here.

-I make it 3,200 with 10-10. Three callers! Flop 9-8-3, I bet 10K, and thankfully they muck. Up to 40K.

-I make it 3,200 with 2-2, one caller. Flop K-8-6. I bet 6K, he mucks. Up to 42K.

-UTG makes it 3K, one caller, I call in BB with 7d-6d, but flop of A-Q-2 is no help. Down to 40K.

-I’ve been at this table for an hour, and I’m realizing that this table is the strongest group I’ve ever played against. I know it doesn’t seem that way from the hands I’ve played, but hardly any pot goes uncontested. People are betting correctly, folding correctly, and bluffing frequently. There are two non-players. The other six are all business. At this point in time, my thinking is that I want to break even for the rest of the day, and try my luck in Day Three at a new table, because it’s got to be easier than this one.

-Pocket aces for 6th time. Someone raises to 2,800, I choose to flat-call, hoping that the table’s aggressiveness will work in my favor. We get one other caller. Flop comes Kc-10c-6c. Raiser checks to me, I bet 8K, they both muck. I look back and see that I had the Ac. Perhaps I should have bet less. Up to 45K.

-Two limpers, I call in SB with Js-6s. Flop As-9x-2s. Button bets 2,500, I call, rest muck. Turn 4x, we check. River 5x, we check. He has 10h-6h! Up to 50K. This was a sick win. He inexplicably gave up on this hand, even though it seemed pretty likely that I could be on a draw. Again, I know it seems strange for me to say how tough this table was, when I was allowed to win a hand like this one, but I consider it dumb luck more than anything else.

-End of Level Nine: 49,800.

Level Ten: 600-1,200 blinds, 200 ante

-I make it 3,800 with 7-7, BB calls. Flop K-6-5, I bet 7K, he mucks. Up to 54K.

-VNH there is a raise to 3K. I make it 9K with 9-9. He thinks for at least a minute, then makes it 25K. I muck, and am back down to 45K.

-BOOM. A-A for 7th time in tournament. Black ones. There is a raise to 3,200. I make it 8,000, he calls. Flop K-Q-3 all diamonds. He checks. I bet 12K. I am not happy about the all-diamond flop, but I am committing myself to this hand, and I am betting an amount that shows I am committed. I refuse to be bet or raised off my aces by a hand containing the Ad, for example. He thinks for almost two minutes. He looks frustrated, and I’m nearly certain it is not an act. Finally he says, “OK, I’m all-in.” I shrug and call. The hand I am expecting to see is A-K with the ace of diamonds, but right before he turns his hand up, I think to myself that he would not have looked so frustrated with a hand that good. He turns up A-K with the ace of hearts. I have him drawing dead to two kings. The turn pairs the three, and the river is the five of diamonds, (i.e. if he had held any diamonds, I would have been eliminated). Instead I’m up to 89K. For what it’s worth, he was not one of the strong players. He had come to our table about a half hour earlier, and was chatting nonstop. It made me believe that he wasn’t as focused as he should have been, and that came out in this pivotal hand. After a flop like that, if I’m not bluffing, then there’s nothing he can beat. He has no business calling, let alone going all-in. I just got lucky to get so much action.

-Went the final 45 minutes without playing a hand, so…

-End of Level Ten, End of Day Two: 82,000

Day Three, Level Eleven: 800-1,600 blinds, 200 ante

-Seems like a decent table draw. I’m in Seat Two, which is favorable. The only name player is Alex Kravchenko (4th place finisher from last year) and he is in Seat Nine, so I’ve got position on him. Plus there are at least three short stacks.

-After a few minutes I realize there are only three guys who are real players, and they are all to my right, so I have no complaints or excuses.

-BOOYAH. A-A for 8th time. A player makes it 4K, I make it 11K from SB, he calls. Flop 8-7-5. I bet 16K, he makes it 40K. I take a few seconds to make sure I’m going with this hand, and of course I know that I am. So I stand up Kravchenko style, put my palms behind my chips, and push them all forward. I expect him to call, since he’s only got another 25K or so left, but he mucks. I’m up to 132K. I look at Kravchenko and say, “I saw that work for you all of last year. I guess that’s what I need to do.” He didn’t seem amused. J

-I make it 4,800 with 6-6. A tight player calls from the button, and I decide to check-fold once the flop comes A-10-8. Down to 127K.

-I pick up numerous small pots over the next hour, keeping me moving steadily forward. I’m feeling very comfortable at this table. I’m getting undue respect, plus I am close to being the table chip leader, even though my stack is only slightly above average.

-There is a raise to 4,600. One player calls, and I call from the BB with J-J. Flop comes Q-10-9. I check. Raiser bets 9K Caller folds. I make it 25K. He thinks for a long time, and it is not an act, (i.e. it became clear to me that I was beat at that point), but finally he lays it down. Up to 156K. I’m pretty sure he had A-Q, with an outside chance of A-A. That might seem like a huge laydown, but if my raise is legitimate on a flop like that, there’s not many hands he can beat. Plus, he knows I’ll probably put him all-in on the turn if he calls the flop, so he has to decide if he’s willing to risk his tournament life with one pair. Clearly he wasn’t.

-After that hand, the kid to my right says, “How do you do it? How do you win all those chips without showing a single hand? You are ballin’, man!” That last line cracked me up, although he had a point. I had gone from 82K to 156K, and never had to show a single hand.

-End of Level Eleven: 156,900

Level Twelve: 1K-2K blinds, 300 ante

-SICK hand. One player limps, then another makes it 7K to go. I have Ac-Qc in the BB. I make it 18K to go. He pushes all-in for 36K total, I call, he has A-A. But flop comes K-J-10! Turn 3, river the case ace. SICK. Up to 192K. I was genuinely torn about what to do preflop. My first instinct was to fold, and I truly have no idea why I ignored that instinct. I thought his raise to 7K, after a player had limped for 2K, was inviting action. But then I decided that I had been getting way too much respect, so I should try to use that. But I don’t know what I was thinking. I put him on a big hand, and if that was the case, then all the respect in the world wouldn’t make him fold. If I had flat-called, then the hand would have worked out the same way, but calling was honestly not on my mind. I was prepared to fold, and then I was like, “Fuck that. No one has called my raises yet, so I’m raising.” This was obviously my luckiest hand of the tournament. It would not have broken me to lose it, but I would have been down below 120K, instead of up to 192K.

-There is a raise to 6K I call with 7-7. Flop A-3-5. He checks, I bet 12K, he mucks. Up to 206K.

-Folded to SB, he limps. I raise 5K from BB with 9-2, he calls. Flop J-J-7. He checks, I bet 8K, he makes it 21K, I muck. Turns out he was slowplaying K-K. Whoops. Down to 189K. This was a very unnecessary play, but given my table image of aggressive and lucky, I saw no reason to leave any pot uncontested. Once he called, my initial thought was, “OK, I’m done.” Then of course the flop came and I told myself I had to take one shot at it, and of course that was a waste of 8K. I knew it even as I was making the bet. J Sometimes you just have that feeling.

-One limper, SB limps, I check 9h-8h in BB. Flop 9-4-3. Checked to limper, he bets 6K, I call. Queen on turn, we check. Ten on river, we check again, he has A-9. Down to 178K.

-I go an hour without playing a hand, and just as the level is almost over I get moved to a new table. New and much shittier. Instead of being one of the two chip leaders, I am now one of the three shortest stacks. I am hardly a short stack, but everyone has at least 120K in chips, with several players over 300K. I am in Seat Two, and I have Brandon Cantu to deal with in Seat Eight. Without question, this table change sucked.

-End of Level Twelve: 171,400

Level Thirteen: 1,200-2,400 blinds, 300 ante

-I make it 7,500 with J-J. I get re-raised to 23K and I let it go. Down to 157K.

-I make it 7K with 7-7, SB calls. Flop 10-5-2. He leads out for 12K and I muck. Down to 145K. Last two hands are examples of how the money pressure might have been getting to me a little. We were getting close to being in the money, and I was not in the mood to take chances. Normally I would raise the flop 3 out of 4 times in this situation. But here, I really didn’t want to take unnecessary chances.

-They just moved Hassan Habib to Seat Four with about 250K, as if this table wasn’t hard enough.

-Those were literally the only two hands I played. I could not even steal the blinds.

-End of Level Thirteen: 126,000

Level Fourteen: 1,500-3,000 blinds, 400 ante

-At the start of this level, my mindset was that we would probably be in the money by the end of the level, so I could just pay my blinds and make the money, but I would also be leaving myself too short stacked to do much more than that. So far my image at this table was tight but weak, so that was not in my favor. Plus Brandon was literally playing over 50% of his hands, so there was no room to breathe. I pretty much decided that I would be at the mercy of my cards for the next two hours. If I picked up a premium hand, (A-A, K-K, Q-Q, or A-K) I would take my chances with it to some extent. Anything less and I was probably folding, other than possibly taking one shot at the blinds.

-WOW. A-A for 9th time. One player limps. Brandon makes it 13K. I make it 60K. The limper goes all-in! Brandon mucks, I call, he has K-K, and the aces hold. Up to 256K. This demonstrates, of course, the total luck factor of a tournament like this. If we reverse the hands and give me the K-K, I’m the one that’s out just short of the money. Instead I end up lasting another day and a half, and the player with K-K ends up getting eliminated a few hands later, about 20 spots short of $21,000 in real money. I like his limp preflop. He was counting on Brandon to raise on his left, and that was a pretty safe bet. I just happened to wake up with the nuts.

-I make it 9K with K-J. The BB calls and then leads out for 12K on an 8-5-2 flop. I muck. Down to 248K.

-Soon afterwards we are playing hand for hand, which goes on for about an hour. Brandon raises literally every pot during that time. I do the opposite and fold every hand like a wuss. Still, we made the money by the end of the level, so we were able to get back to normal.

-End of Level Fourteen: 234,500

Level Fifteen: 2K-4K blinds, 500 ante

-I make it 12K on button with 2-2. SB goes all-in for 36K. I’m going to call, except Habib comes over the top from the BB, and I muck. Habib has Q-Q, SB has A-5 but flops an ace to survive. Turns out I saved money, but still down to 212K.

-I pick up A-A for the 10th time, but no action this time. I can’t complain.

-I make it 12K with A-Q, get reraised to 36K and muck. Down to 202K.

-Cantu makes it 13K in Seat Eight. Seat Nine calls, then Seat One goes all-in for 125K. I’m in Seat Two, in the SB with A-K offsuit. I decide to muck. Cantu calls with 4-4. The all-in player has A-10, and the flop comes with a king. Instead of being up to over 350K, I’m holding steady at around 180K. I don’t regret this laydown. I mean, I obviously regret it from the way it played out, but I was really surprised that Seat One had only A-10. He had been playing pretty tight, and I understood that people were going to play looser once we made the money, but that was looser than I expected. If I had called, Cantu just might have been wacky enough to overcall with his pocket fours (he certainly had the chips to overcall) in which case I would have been a slight dog, but would have flopped a king to end up with almost 500K. Still, I feel like that is playing results. I could just as easily have been up against K-K or A-A, or even a smaller pair, but with one or more of my cards being dead.

-I make it 14K UTG with Q-Q. I get called by a tightish player in middle position, and Cantu on the button. The flop comes K-8-3. I check. Middle position player bets 30K. Cantu folds. I check-raise all-in. He looks shocked. He then starts saying, “I think we have the same hand … I think we have the same hand.” Now I know he has A-K, and I’m basically ready to leave. But remarkably, he shows his hand and lays it down, saying I must have A-A. I could not believe it. Up to 235K. This was easily my worst play of the entire tournament. On the flop, my plan was to check-raise Cantu, because I was sure he would have reraised preflop with A-K and probably even K-Q, and I was equally sure he would bet the flop if we checked to him, regardless of his hand. I was not ready for the other player to come out betting. As I said, he was relatively tight, so for him to call preflop, and for him to bet such a non-drawing-hand flop, he absolutely had to have at least a big king, possibly even a set. All I can say is that I was fed up with having laid down A-K the previous round, and for laying down hands at this table for the past six hours. I had created the tightest image possible, and with only twenty minutes before the night ended and our table broke, I was desperate for an opportunity to take advantage of the tight image I had created by folding 95% of my hands. As soon as I made the all-in raise I regretted it, but I desperately tried to keep a confident face, and somehow my opponent laid down a hand he shouldn’t have laid down in a million years. His laydown eventually equated to an extra $20,000 in prize money for me.

-Last hand of the night, there is a raise to 17K, I call in SB with 10-10 and the BB calls. Flop A-8-5, we all check. Turn a five. I bet 25K. BB folds, raiser shows 9-9 and folds. Up to 268K.

-End of Level Fifteen, End of Day Three: 268,000

Day Four, Level Sixteen: 2,500-5,000 blinds, 500 ante

-Only name player at my table is Shawn Sheikhan in Seat Eight with over 700K. Chris Bjorin is in Seat Two, but with less than 40K. I’m in Seat Four, which is fine. It’s a nice mix of players, definitely not one of the tougher tables remaining.

-Sheiky make it 16K, another player makes it 50K, and I muck A-K in the BB. Sheiky mucked as well, so we’ll never know. I wasn’t going to take unnecessary chances until I knew my opponents a little better.

-VNH the reraiser from the previous hand makes it 16K. I make it 51K from the SB with A-K, he calls. Flop 10-5-3, I move all-in and he mucks. Up to 330K. So much for not taking chances. Basically, I wasn’t going to give him credit for two big hands in a row. This was a case of Peter Costa in my head, asking, “Do you need the chips?” And I simply needed the chips, thus the all-in. This hand added over 20% to my stack.

-SB limps, I check 10-2 in BB. Flop K-10-10. He calls 6K on flop and 12K on turn but folds to 30K bet on river Up to 340K. In retrospect he was the weakest player at the table. I have no idea what he had, but it could have been as weak as a gutshot straight draw.

-There is a raise to 16K. I make it 51K with Ah-Kh. He reraises another 100K. I consider for a while, but muck. Down to 280K. Maybe I should have taken a stand with one of these A-K hands, but I felt I had enough chips that I didn’t need to risk my tournament life on A-K. Plus, this player’s raise really reeked of strength, much more so than the first A-K I laid down.

-VNH I make it 15K with Kc-Qc, BB calls. Flop Ax-9c-6c. I bet 18K, he folds. Up to 310K.

-Pocket aces for 11th time. Someone raises to 20K, I make it 50K and he mucks. Up to 330K.

-I make it 16K with 9-9, both blinds call. Flop As-6s-5x, we all check. Qx on turn. Shieky bets 40K, I call, other player mucks. River 4s. We check, and he has A-K. Down to 260K. I thought there was enough of a chance that he was trying to buy the pot, hence my call on the turn. On the other hand, I knew that a big ace was a definite possibility as well.

-2 limpers, I limp in SB with K-9. Flop 8s-7s-5h, we all check. Turn 7h. I bet 22K, one caller. River Kh. We both check, and I’m pretty sure I rivered him, but then he shows A-7! Whoops. Down to 220K. This was the French player in Seat Two that was clearly the tightest player at the table. He plays a pivotal role in a later hand.

-There is a raise to 16K, I call on button with A-Q. Flop A-K-Q with two clubs. He checks, I bet 25K, he calls. Turn 8x, we both check. River 9x. He bets 40K, I call, and he mucks instantly. Nice. Up to 315K. He later said he had a club draw, but I’m not sure he even had that much.

-I make it 15K on button with Ad-10d, SB calls. Flop 2-3-6. I bet 22K, he folds. Up to 340K.

-End of Level Sixteen: 326,000

Level Seventeen: 3K-6K blinds, 1K ante

-UTG raises to 16K, I call on button with Jc-10c, BB calls. Flop Q-8-6 all hearts. We all check. Turn 7h. They check to me, I bet 25K, they both call. Whoops. River a blank, and we check around. UTG had As-Kh, but SB had 10h-9h for a straight flush! Big whoops. Down to 290K. He played his hand so slow he was almost moving backwards.

-There is a raise to 20K and two callers. I call in BB with 4-4, but the flop comes 9-8-8 and I fold to a 40K bet. Down to 250K.

-I make it 18K from cutoff with J-4, BB calls. Flop J-8-8, we both check. Turn a queen. He bets 27K, I call. River a jack! He checks, I bet 60K, and he folds. Up to 305K. As soon as I bet, I realized I had bet too much. If he had anything with which to call, it was either a weak queen or ace high or something like that. I should have sucked him in with something smaller, possibly even induced a check-raise bluff.

-I make it 18K with A-7, one caller. Flop A-J-8. I check-call 35K. We check 10 on turn and 9 on river, and my straight is good. I highly doubt that I needed it. Up to 400K.

-There is a raise to 25K. I call in BB with Ac-Qc. Flop comes A-A-10. I lead out for 20K. He thinks, says, “Excellent bet,” and folds. Damn, if he folded I guess it wasn’t so excellent. Anyway, up to 425K.

-Pocket aces for 12th(!) time. There is a raise to 25K, I make it 60K and he mucks. Up to 460K.

-I steal the blinds with A-K. Then VNH, I make it 21K with 9-9. There’s a raise to 61K and a reraise to 261K. Obviously I muck, and re-raiser shows A-A. Still at 460K.

-End of Level Seventeen: 468,000

As it turns out, this was my high mark for the tournament. At the time, we were down to about 350 players, and I was a good 100K-150K above average. I really felt good, and thought that if I stayed at the same table for the rest of the day, one million in chips would be an achievable goal. Of course, it didn’t take long to bring me back down to earth.

-Level Eighteen: 4K-8K blinds, 1K ante

-UTG limps and I limp with 10-10, then there is a raise to 42K. I call, but then the flop comes K-Q-8 and I muck to a 65K bet. Down to 370K.

-Sheiky makes it 22K, I call from BB with J-J. Flop comes A-Q-2. I lead out for 20K and he mucks. Up to 405K.

-The sick hand of the tournament. UTG raises to 20K. Three players call. I make it 140K from the SB with Q-Q. Blinds fold, then the UTG player almost immediately goes all-in. The next two players fold. Frenchman in Seat Two reluctantly calls with a relatively short stack. I just can’t imagine my hand being any good. As soon as I muck, UTG says to Frenchman, “I think you have me beat,” and produces K-Q. Frenchman has A-K, and the final board comes nine-high. Frenchman doubles up, and I’m down to 240K. This hand was totally fucked, but at least it was fucked enough for me to produce a Card Player article out of it. J My raise was an attempt to signify that I was pot-committed, but deep down I knew that I could get away from the hand if I had to. 240K was still enough to work with. I was really convinced the UTG player had aces, but still, he had to figure that there was a decent chance I would call, just because so many of my chips were already in the pot. Although I shouldn’t do it, what bothers me the most is when I play the “what if?” game. If he had folded like he was supposed to, I’m going to get the A-K player all-in, and when the board comes nine-high, I’m going to be up over 750K. That would have been HUGE. Instead, I had to nurse a below-average stack for the remainder of my time in the tournament.

-There is a raise to 25K. I go all-in with A-Q and he mucks. Up to 280K. At this point I can’t fuck around anymore.

-I make it 24K with A-Q, BB calls. Flop K-10-3. He checks, I bet 35K and he mucks. Up to 290K.

-VNH SB makes it 22K, I call in BB with Qc-10c. Flop K-9-3, we check. Turn a five. He checks, I bet 30K and he mucks. Up to 320K.

-VNH UTG makes it 20K, I call in SB with 9-9. Flop K-7-6. I bet out 20K, he makes it 60K and I muck. Back down to 280K. That 20K lead bet had been causing opponents to fold, or at least hesitate, so I figured I’d keep doing it until someone took a stand. Here was that stand.

-End of Level Eighteen: 268,000

Level Nineteen: 5K-10K blinds, 1K ante

-I make it 32K with A-K. Sheiky calls, then someone reraises to 110K. I go all-in, Sheiky folds A-K, other guy calls with A-K! We split. Up to 280K.

-There is a raise to 35K. SB calls, and I call in BB with 4-4. Flop J-4-3 all hearts. I bet 100K, they fold. Up to 330K.

-We are ending Day Four at 11 PM, with 189 players remaining and 40 minutes left in Level Nineteen. I have 308K.

Start of Day Five

-I’m at a new table. There’s not a single name player, but everyone except for one player has more chips than me. Que lastima.

-I didn’t play a single hand for the remainder of the level, so…

-End of Level Nineteen: 263,000

Level Twenty: 6K-12K blinds, 2K ante

-Nothing even close to a playable hand for the first hour. Blinded down to 190K.

-After an hour and a half, the cutoff makes it 35K, and I go all-in from the button with 3-3. He folds A-8. “Up” to 190K.

-I make it 38K with J-10. I get reraised all-in, and I muck. Down to 140K.

-I go all-in on button with A-5. BB calls with A-Q, but flop comes 6-5-4. Nice! Turn and river blanks. Up to 260K. Obviously I got lucky this hand, but I was also unlucky to have gone almost three hours without anything remotely playable. There’s never a good time to go card dead at the WSOP, and Day Five is definitely no exception.

-End of Level Twenty: 260,000

Level Twenty-One: 8K-16K blinds, 2K ante

-Only got to play one hand. The button raises to 35K. I go all-in from BB with 10-10. He thinks for a long while, then calls with K-J. Flop comes A-J-9. Turn is a queen, giving me some faint hope, but the river is a four. I’m eliminated in 144th place. Losing to this player was really painful. In an earlier hand, he put in a fourth raise preflop with J-J against a player who clearly had him beat. The other guy beat him into the pot with A-A, then the guy flops quad jacks. In this hand, he should have had an easy laydown with his K-J, When he thought as long as he did, I really hoped I had him dominated. I thought he might have a smaller pocket pair, or a hand like A-9. When he called, I was sure I was happy with the call, but I really thought I’d be happier. Instead it was a coin flip and I lost. Oh well.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. And if you had a piece of my action, you’re welcome. J

They Say Poker is All Luck...

About 25% of the time I tell people I'm a professional poker player they do all but tell me I'm a liar. They know that you can't win at gambling. If it involves cards it must be all luck.

So I won the nightly $109 HORSE tournament AGAIN! Another $2,000 in the Huff coffers baby! This makes 8 attempts at $109 HORSE tournaments with between 55 and 72 players. I have 3 1sts and a 6th in those 8 attempts.

This was another final table where it wasn't even close. I simply kicked everyone's ass. I came to the final table in 3rd place when we were in the Stud round. There were two short stacks who went down the tubes quickly. During the Stud Hi-Lo I got great cards and found myself in first place playing 4 handed as we switched to Hold'em. I used my expertise in short handed limit hold 'em to take out two of my remaining opponents and dropped the last villain 5 hands into the Omaha.

This was another great victory and it's getting harder and harder to stop working early and skip that 6:45 HORSE tournament!

Ten Tournaments

Today I played 10 tournaments with buy ins totaling $2,010. Here's what I played and where I finished (money finishes are in bold):

$109 Pot Limit Hold em 6 handed 47 of 54
$55 NL hold 'em 1671 of 1971
$55 NL hold 'em with 1 rebuy and 1 add on 319 of 459
$215 Sunday Million 708 of 7557
$530 Sunday $500K Guarantee NL hold 'em 341 of 993
109 NL hold 'em 771 of 1062
$109 with rebuys 375 of 477
$215 HORSE 104 of 240
$33 NL hold 'em 6 handed with rebuys 19 of 252
$215 Sunday Second chance NL Hold 'em 40 of 1338

Today is a great example of why it would be super tough to play multitables for a living. I had three money finishes in ten tournaments and I still lost $837!!! You really have to make a final table to make any money.

I was close to something sweet in the $215 Sunday Second Chance which was the last tournament I went broke in. There was a guy at my table raising 75% of hands. So with blinds of 2,000/4,000 I decided to see a flop in the big blind with K2 of diamonds after he made it 10,000 to go. I had about 70,000 total and I only had to risk 6,000 when the pot (including the antes) had close to 20,000 in it already. Furthermore I was 100% sure that my opponent would bet the flop no matter what came down so if I hit big I knew there would be a very juicy pot. When the flop showed up Q 8 5 with two diamonds I decided to check raise semi bluff all in.

Of course my opponent bet after I checked. He fired out 20,000 and I moved all in for my remaining 60,000. I was hoping he would fold, but he instantly called me with K8, I missed the diamonds and I was out. Winning that pot would have put me somewhere around 10th place with 39 players left. 18th paid $1,650, 12th was $2,850, 7th was $9,750, and 1st was $54,480.

When I get close like this I always tell myself to keep giving myself chances and I'll close out one of these big ones sometime soon. With two finishes in the top 10% and one in the top 3% in only 10 tournaments I have to feel pretty good about my performance even if I didn't win any money. I really feel like I'm playing great poker lately and I'm hoping I can catch the few breaks I need to do something special in the WCOOP which starts a week from Friday!

More Comment Responses

Here are two comments I got on my last post:

Dave
Congrats on your recent cashings, I've been reading your blog for a couple of years now, I find your opinions both intresting and imformative, What name do you play under ???, would like to quietly rail you sometime..!, Keep up the good work matey, onwards and upwards and gl with the Fpp's.
Dave from London.

It's always great to hear that people I don't even know are following my progress and rooting for me! My username on pokerstars is acesedai. Hopefully I'll be at a final table when you watch!

Here's the second comment:

Thanks for the response (the complexity of the HORSE issue is turning out to be fascinating). In any case, I've never heard you say anything like this when it comes to poker: "..I suspect I'd get my ass handed to me against top notch players in Omaha for example."

And so I have another question! Is it worth sharpening up your Omaha game, or trying to tune up your HORSE game, because there are HORSE games that are out there for such insane amounts of money? If not, why not? Jenn



Let me start by saying that I may have exaggerated when I said I'd get my ass handed to me against top notch Omaha players. I know enough and am good enough that I wouldn't get totally blasted. The problem is I've probably only played 25,000 hands of Omaha in my entire life. Whereas I've played over 2,000,000 hands of hold'em. In poker experience is a huge deal and I simply haven't had enough to compete with players who know all the ins and outs.

Actually this is all supposition since I've never played Omaha for big money. Maybe I'd find that I'm better than I think!

As far as trying to improve so I can play the super duper big HORSE games I have to say they are so far out of my comfort zone in terms of the amount of money that I couldn't see playing them even if I knew I was the best player. In the $200/$400 game just calling a hand to the end in one of the stud based games with no raising will cost you $1,600. With heavy raising you could easily put $4,000 in on one pot. I'm a few years away from being emotionally ready to handle those kind of swings.

If I want to play for more money I can play $50/$100 hold'em or bigger tournaments or whatever. There are tons of ways I can get more dollars into play if I want to. One of the things that has made me a successful pro is I've moved up the limits very gradually. As my skills have improved I've played for bigger stakes, but I haven't taken too many huge risks.

With that said I'm going to play a dozen multitable tournaments with buy ins totaling about $2,500 today! Hopefully I can take at least one deep.

A HORSE Comment Response

After my last post about my most recent ass kicking playing HORSE my sister posted the following comment:

Not to ask you to toot your own horn, but do you think your strength at HORSE is due to the fact that not many people are good at all the different types of games and able to switch back and forth between them? If so, could you make a name for yourself as Dave Huff, HORSE Champion? (That sounds like a taunt when I say it that way, and considering the source.....But it's actually a serious question.)

I certainly think it's a big advantage that I'm good at all of the games. Back in the days when I was a prop player at the Oaks Club I had to play Omaha and 7 card stud on a daily basis and got pretty good at both. Razz seems to come very natually to me and while stud Hi-Lo is my worst of the 5 games I have read a book about it which I'm sure is more than many of my opponents can say.

It's been obvious to me in these past few tournaments that when we switch games some of the players go from formidale opponents to having no clue. Most players seem to be comfortable with either the flop games (the H and the O) or the stud based games (the R, S, and E). It's actually tough to gain expereince in the stud based games these days since there are very few cash games for any kind of significant money and almost no tournaments.

I think this is mostly because in the stud based games you have to remember a bunch of cards that have come and gone and it's hard to do that playing many games at a time. As a result anyone who wants to play more than 2 or 3 games at once is naturally going to gravitate to flop games.

Another thing that I think has led to some of my success is HORSE tournaments are limit. This means that no one hand is going to do you in early on and it's more a sum of many small decisions rather than a few big ones that create my advantage.

Yet another thing that allowed me to win outright is my vast final table experience. I've played at hundreds of final tables. One more where 1st place is $2,000 isn't anything to take me off my game or make me nervous. On the other hand moving up a spot or two might be a big deal to my opponents (as it is for me when first place is $50,000 or $500,000).

As far as making a name for myself goes there are two problems. First and foremost there really aren't that many HORSE tournaments out there. To give you an idea, at this years WCOOP there are 17 hold'em events and 2 HORSE events (and one of those has a $10,000 buy in!!!) As another example, in the next hour on Pokerstars there are 18 tournaments starting: 15 are hold'em, two are Omaha and one is 7 card stud. By contrast there are only 4 HORSE tournaments in the next 13 hours and the biggest one has a $20 buy in.

The second problem is when you start playing for big bucks everyone knows how to play all the games at the highest level. While I feel like I can play Hold'em against the best players in the world and at least hold my own, I suspect I'd get my ass handed to me against top notch players in Omaha for example.

Behind the WSOP main event and maybe the $25,000 WPT championship the next most important tournament in the world is the $50,000 HORSE tournament at the WSOP (an event that's only 3 years old). Also the biggest cash game in the world which is a $4,000/$8,000 game at the Bellagio is basically HORSE with one or two other games mixed in.

You'll notice that the main point here is when you can find HORSE it's usually for very little money or insane amounts of money. On pokerstars there's typically a $5/$10game going and a $200/$400 game going. I could beat the shit our of the $5/$10 game and win enough for a nice dinner or lose enough money to buy a nice car in the $200/$400 game.

Since my last post I've played the $109 HORSE tournament on pokerstars twice: once finishing 6th out of 62 which paid close to $500 and then finishing dead last in a field of 64! Ha! That's poker!

I'm going to keep my eye out for HORSE opportunities and I'm certainly stoaked about the $215 HORSE event in the WCOOP. I think I have about 8 WCOOP cashes and my deepest finish came in the $215 HORSE in 2006 if I remember correctly.

Thanks for the comment!!!

Winning Leads to More Winning!

I played a ton of poker today. I managed 3,000 hands of 6 handed limit hold'em and played a dozen multitable tournaments. I won about $1,000 in the cash games, but I dropped $400 on one $55 with rebuys tournament and had a bunch of other duds in the morning. But I started 6 tournaments between 5 and 7 pm and had two cashes. The first cash wasn't super significant coming just into the money in a $109 NL tournament.

The second cash was much more interesting and came in a $109 HORSE tournament. We started with 56 players and since it only paid 6 spots the top 6 places looked very similar to those in the HORSE tournament I won the other day. More importantly the results were similar...I won again!

This time there wasn't nearly as much drama. I was in the middle of the pack when we made the final table playing Stud Hi-Lo, but once we switched to hold em I picked up a ton of chips with relentless raising. This tournament only had 12 minute limits so we switched games much more quickly. Two players went down in the hold 'em followed by three more in the Omaha. By the time we went to Razz, I had twice as many chips as my two remaining opponents combined. 10 quick hands later it was over.

First place paid $2,060! Apparently I kick ass at HORSE! This $109 tournament goes off every day at 6:45 and I may have to start planning my schedule to play it more frequently!

Two Solid Finishes

I came back from vacation on August 12th ready to get back into my normal poker routine. I played a little on vacation, but it wasn't the type of play that generates many points. In fact I spent most of my time playing multitables, and oddly enough limit Omaha cash games and Razz (7-card stud where the worst hand wins) cash games. After a while I was feeling so good about my Razz play that I played about 250 hands of $30/$60 and won about $1,000!

Many people would say that Razz is one of the most boring games in the poker world, but I enjoy it. The thing I like about it most is there are so many situations that come up where you can be 100% sure that you have the best hand. For example after 3 cards if you have 3 cards 7 and below and someone is showing an up card 8 or higher you're ahead. On the next card even if they catch a 2 if you hit another good card you know for sure you're still ahead.

One thing people hate is when they start off with 3 or 4 great low cards and then catch a bunch of face cards. While this can be frustrating when it happens to me, I love it when it happens to my opponents. Sometimes weak players get so frustrated that they continue in a hand where they are totally dead just because they had a good hand on third street.

So with all that in mind, on Friday night I decided to play a $320 Razz tournament on Full tilt. They are in the midst of running a series of big tournaments much like the WCOOP (only much less significant and prestigious) which is the only reason they were able to run a $320 Razz tournament and get more than 3 people to sign up (normally $20is about the biggest Razz tournaments get and even then there's usually a very small field).

I'd already played a full day and the start time for the tournament was 6 pm. But since this type of tournament only comes along once every few months I decided to sit on the couch with my laptop, have a glass of wine, watch some Olympics and give it a go. I also jumped into "The Nightly Hundred Grand" on pokerstars which is a $162 tournament with a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool. Even though it had been a long day, I couldn't bring myself to play just one game at a time.

So after all that Razz talk I have to tell you that the Razz tournament was a total bust! I went broke about half way through that one, but I made the final table in the $162 tournament!

We started that tournament with about 750 players and I struggled for the first few hours. I was never in major trouble, but I never had a comfortable stack either. The tournament paid 90 spots and when we made the money I had about half of average. From that point on I played great in the small pots and poorly in the big ones. But sometimes you get lucky.

I got all my chips in when I was totally dominated at least 4 times that I can remember. The first one was just after we made the money. A player from middle position made a standard raise and I moved all in from the button with AT suited. I got called by AK and figured I was done. But I flopped a ten and doubled up.

When we were down to about 45 players I managed to get about 2/3 of my chips in with AJ vs KK. I flopped a J and turned another one giving my stack a nice boost.

A little later I once again had ATs against AK. The flop came AT2 and I doubled up again.

After all this great luck I was in good shape as we made the final table. 9th place paid about $1,500 so I was already looking at a nice score, but of course I had my eye on the $20,000 first place prize.

Unusually, everyone at the final table was very even in chips. In fact the chip leader only had twice as many chips as the player in 9th place! Normally when you make the final table there are a few short stacks and everyone plays pretty conservatively until they go broke since every spot you move up is big bucks. In this case 8th place paid $2,400 and I was happy to see the first person go broke after a very long half hour of final table play.

The player who finished in 8th place went broke and soon after I had my 4th miracle of the day. I was running a little short on chips and I moved all in with 44. I got called by QQ and figured I was done in 7th. The flop came 6 6 5 the turn was a 7 and the river was an 8 making me a straight! I was back baby!

That poor fellow soon went broke in 7th and took home $3,500 for his efforts. By this time is was well after midnight, and despite the fact that I'd started playing that day about 9 in the morning I was feeling surprisingly fresh.

We lost the 6th place finisher who got paid $4,600 and then we spent a long time playing 5 handed. We were all still pretty even and based on what I'd seen I liked my chances against my opposition. At that point two players got all their chips in: one with TT and the other with 33. The tens held up and I was happy to see the player with 33 get knocked down to about 45,000 chips. The blinds were 5,000/10,000 the rest of us all had more than 300,000 and I figured he'd be done in a hurry. Sadly I was wrong.

First he moved in with A5 and I called him out of the big blind with QT. He flopped an ace and was up to around 100,000 while I was down from about 350,000 to 300,000. A few hands later he moved all in with 99 and I called him with AQ. After no help for me we both had around 200,000. A few rounds later he moved all in from the button and I found myself with 66 in the big blind.

While his other all ins had been pretty standard moves, now that he had more chips moving all in was really excessive. I knew if he had a big hand he'd never put in all of his chips that way. If either of his cards was a 2,3,4,5, or 6 (18 of the 50 cards left in the deck) I be about 70% to win.

After some thought I decided to call and he turned over K5s which was just the kind of hand I hoped he'd have. Sadly the flop came with a K and I was done. The good news is I got paid $5,700 for 5th place!!! YAY!

One of the best things about winning is it usually leads to more winning. On Saturday I sat down feeling like even if I had a terrible day and lost a few thousand it would be ok. As a result I was feeling very relaxed and confident.

When I logged on to pokerstars about 9:30 in the morning I saw that a special tournament was going off at 10. They were running a $109 HORSE multitable as a test run for the structure they're going to use in the $10,000 HORSE event at this years WCOOP. This meant a looooooong tournament since we started with 25,000 chips and 30 minute levels. But since I was just starting play I figured I'd have the energy to play it all day if I had to.

For those of you who don't know HORSE is a combination of 5 forms of poker: (H)old 'em, (O)maha, (R)azz, 7 card (S)tud and Stud (E)ight or better (stud Hi-Lo split). We played each game in that order for 30 minutes and every time we switched to a new game the stakes increased slightly.

The thing I like about HORSE is I feel like I'm really good at all 5 games. Also having 5 different forms of poker adds significantly to the complexity of a tournament and any time you can make it more complicated it favors the stronger player. Stud Hi-Lo is probably my weakest of the 5 games, but I feel like there are very few experts in that game and even though it's my worst game I'm still way better than most of my opponents.

We started with 72 players and after about 7 hours I found myself in 3rd place as we started play at the 8 handed final table. Since this was a much smaller tournament that the one I described above the payouts weren't as exciting, but they were still significant. 8th place paid $360 and this time we did have a few short stacks who quickly went broke.

We started the final table playing Omaha and I struggled a little, but once we got the the Razz I started kicking major ass. By the time the half hour of Razz was over we were down to 5 and I was in first. During the half hour of 7 card stud I built my lead. At the end of that half hour while we were still playing 5 handed, but I had as many chips as all of my opponents combined!

In the Stud Hi-Lo I dropped the hammer and busted three of my 4 opponents leaving one player left. I had about 1.5 million chips and he had 200,000. 2nd place paid $1,440 and 1st was $2,160 so we were playing heads up for a little over $700.

I figured since we were going back to hold'em soon I'd make quick work of my last opponent and call it a day. But I was in for much more of a battle. We were playing FAST. I'm talking 5 or 6 hands a minute fast. And we played about 10 minutes of Stud Hi-Lo, the whole way through the half hour of hold 'em and into the Omaha before we were done. This was a TON of hands.

As soon as we started the hold-em my opponent started picking up a ton of great hands. He got AA at least 3 times and kept making 2 pair with garbage hands. Soon we were even and at one point he took the lead with about 1,000,000 chips to my 700,000 chips. That was only for a moment and I took the lead right back. It seemed like I'd get him down to 400,000 and then he'd always climb back up.

We stated the Omaha about even, but he clearly had no clue how to play heads up Omaha and I blew him out of the water in no time. I knew I was having a good run, but wasn't really looking at our stacks. Then all of a sudden I won a HUGE pot and saw he was down to 40,000. The next hand it was over.

I know I won much more money in the hold'em tournament, but there's something very special about finishing in 1st. Also I love doing well in HORSE tournaments. It makes me feel like a very well rounded player. It's certainly been a sweet two days!

Also my sister in law and avid blog reader Kristen was here and took 5% of my action in the HORSE. It was nice to be able to shoot her a $100 bill and share some profits for once!

More Battle of the Planets!

As of my last post I'd played 63 tournaments of a 100 tournament block in the $50-$99 division of the battle of the planets. On Friday, the day I left town for vacation, I woke up and played the remaining 37 tournaments I needed to complete my block. And I kicked some MAJOR ass.

Over the course of the 100 tournaments I finished in 1st 25 times! Every time I found myself in the money it seemed like I won. I ended up with 1566 points which was good for second place in the High Orbit leader board and a prize of $700! I also finished in 13th on the low orbit leader board (which is for blocks of 20) which was good for $80.

Of course I did make about $2,500 in the actual play of the 100 tournaments so that bonus money wasn't super significant, but it felt really sweet to have a high place finish.

Wasting time...sort of.

I've sort of been screwing around lately poker wise. While I've put in a few thousand hands of my normal 6 handed cash games in the past week, I've been spending most of my time playing tournaments.

This week I've been playing a mix of multitables and SNGs. I haven't managed any final tables, but I have finished in the top 20 in 3 tournaments with 500 entrants or more. Of course I can bring some pride and a few bucks away from those results, but it's mostly frustrating to be just short of winning a few grand for a final table appearance or a five digit first place payday.

After last weeks attempt to do well on the Battle of the Planets SNG leader board I realized I missed playing single table tournaments a little. So while I was mixing it up in the multitables I was also seeing if I could do anything in this weeks battle of the planets. After a strong start and then a small reversal in the $100+ division I wasn't able to book a big number of points in the "low orbit" leader board (which counts blocks of 20 tournaments) and after about 80 tournaments I gave up on scoring in the top 10 in the "high orbit" leaderboard (which measures blocks of 100 tournaments).

In the $50-$99 division I had some better success. I had one block of 20 tournaments where after 18 SNGs I had EIGHT first and two second place finishes (it's some serious shit for tournaments that start with 9 players to have that many top finishes). With two tournaments left to go I was in a spot where all I needed was one 3rd place finish to move into 3rd place on the low orbit leaderboard (it would have taken two firsts to move into first overall). Instead I got robbed. In BOTH of my remaining tournaments I was in first chip position with five players left. In one I lost 90% of my chips with TT to AK and in the other I lost KK to 44 in a very similar situation. I couldn't work any magic with my super short stacks and found myself stuck in 9th on the low orbit leader board. With a few days left in the week I don't think there's any way I can hang on to a top ten spot.

But I still have a shot a the high orbit leaderboard in the $50-$99 division. After 63tournaments I have 900 points (you get 45 for a 1st, 27 for a second and 18 for a third). I need over 1,400 to be in the top 5, over 1,500 to be in the top 3 and 1,693 to be in first if you look at the current standings. Right now I'm on pace to finish with 1,428 which I think would be good for somewhere in the 6th or 7th range once the week is over. But if I can close strong I have a shot at a top 2 or 3 spot. 1st pays $1,000, 2nd $700, 3rd $500 and every place in the top 15 pays something ($80 is the bottom prize).

To be honest this competition isn't really about the money. Of course that's nice and if there wasn't any money I wouldn't go for it. But mostly I want the thrill of victory! I can say for sure that in the long run I'd be better off dollar wise just playing my 6 handed cash games. But, I am a pretty damn good SNG player and I want to take down that $1,000 for first on one of these leaderboards!

I'm off on vacation to the east coast for the next week or so and while I expect to play a little, I don't expect to post about it unless something major happens.

Don't forget the WCOOP starts September 5th! This will be right about the time I clear my $6,000 milestone bonus so I'm going to go big!

Two Tournament Victories!

I've been playing about half a dozen multitables a day for the past week or so and I've had some solid success. It's been a mix of medium buy in tournaments with lots of players and big prizes and some small buy in tournaments with fewer players.

I actually managed to win two of the latter! One of my victories came yesterday in a $55 NL tournament with 6 handed tables and about 150 entrants. I dominated the final table and took home about $2,000 for my first place finish.

The other came today in a $22 with one rebuy tournament today. We started with 198 players and I ended up on top. 1st only paid about $1,300 but it came with the thrill of victory!

Also while I was playing in the $55 tournament I mentioned above I finished 4th in an $22 with unlimited rebuys tournament that started with about 250 players. That cash paid just under $1,500!

It's been a great two days! I've had a few other cashes as well and have been playing some of the best poker I can remember ever playing. This all bodes well for the WCOOP which will be starting in about 5 weeks.

Battle of the Planets!

Sounds dramatic doesn't it? Battle of the Planets is what Pokerstars calls their weekly SNG leader board. It really pisses me off that as soon as I stopped playing single table tournaments they created a leader board for them! Bastards!

This week as part of their 2X promotion Pokerstars doubled all the prizes on the Battle of the Planets. As a result I decided to take a little shot at the leader boards to see how I would do.

The leader boards are split into 8 buy in levels with the lowest being Mercury at $1-$3 and the highest being Jupiter at $300+. I decided to focus my attention the $50-$100 bracket (Uranus) and the $100-$300 bracket (Saturn).

You score points by finishing in the money in SNGs. For a standard 9 player SNG first place is 45 points, 2nd is 27 points and third is 18 points. There are two leader boards for each buy in bracket: one that looks at who scores the most points over blocks of 20 tournaments and another that looks at blocks of 100 tournaments. Only your first 5 blocks of 20 tournaments count for the first set and you can enter as many blocks of 100 as you want. Anyone who finishes in the top 15 on any leader board gets prize money and anyone who finishes in the top 10 in any leader board gets entry into a tournament with a $50,000 prize pool at the end of the month.

Since I didn't want to spend too much time on this I decided to play 100 $60 SNG's and 100 $114 SNGs. After completing my set of 100 $60 SNGs I'm currently in 9th on the 100 tournament leader board. With only 20 hours left in the week I'm hoping to stay in the top 10. Unfortunately 37th was the best I could manage on the 20 tournament board. (in case you're wondering I think it's 9th out of 70 and 37th out of over 1,000)

In the $114 tournaments I've only played 65, but it doesn't look too good for the 100 tournament leader board. I'm hoping I can bust out a nice block of 20 and get in that way.

I'm only looking at making $250 for 9th place in the $60 100 tournament race, but the prize pool in the monthly tournament has been doubled this month to $100,000 so I'm hoping to hang on to a top 10 spot for that.

I've had fun participating in the competition and I suspect I might take a few more shots at it in the future. Getting 1st on either leader board in the Uranus division is normally worth $1,000 and it's $1,200 for the Saturn division. I feel like if I gave it a good shot I could win it one of these weeks.

A Brief Visit to High Limit Territory

I was having one of those days today. One of those days where I was constantly finding new and horribly frustrating ways to lose. But I felt like I was playing really well.

Like many other days in the past and I'm sure many days in the future I made the dubious decision to play for tons of money in an effort to get even on the day. I went from a mix of $10/$20 and $5/$10 games to one $30/$60. I was losing about $1,500 on the day when I switched gears and after about 10 minutes of $30/$60 I found myself down about $2,500. CRAP!

Amazingly I was not feeling like a total moron, and wasn't feeling off my game, just unlucky. So I really decided to put my luck to the test and jumped into a $100/$200 game! Whoa baby!

It's been more than 2 years since I last played $100/$200 and it's the biggest game that I've ever played. On that occasion I was playing a full game in person at the Commerce in L.A. which is quite a bit different than a 6 handed, fast paced online game.

I sat down with $5,000 in front of me hoping to make a few hands...and I did. After playing for a little while I was dead even (in that game) and in the small blind. The button raised and I three bet with AJ. The flop came A high, I bet the flop and got called. The turn was a blank I bet and my opponent folded. Bang, an $800 pot and a $400 profit on a hand that didn't even have any action on the turn!

On the next hand the same player raised and I three bet with AT suited. The flop came down ten high, my opponent called a bet on the flop and the turn and folded on the river. This time it was a $1,200 pot and a $600 profit. Nice.

One round later I found myself in the small blind again, this time with QT of clubs. The button raised and I thought about three betting, but just called. The big blind three bet and we took the flop 3 way. The flop was AK5 with 1 club. I checked, the big blind bet, the button folded and I decided to take one look. There was $1,000 in the pot and it was only costing me $100 to continue. If I didn't hit a J or a club on the turn I was done with the hand. Guess what came on the turn...the jack of F-ing clubs! DING!

Now I had the total nuts (with a redraw to a flush) and I decided to go for a check raise. Happily my opponenet bet $200 after my check and I quickly raised him to $400. He called me down on the turn and put in another $200 on the river and I dragged a $2,400 pot (which may be the biggest cash game pot I've ever won). I went from down $2,500 on the day to up about $200 in the matter of about 3 minutes!

But I then I gave some of it back. I was all set to get up after playing to my blinds, but then I picked up AJ. I raised and got called by the guy who'd beaten with no showdown on the first two hands I mentioned. The flop came down 774 and he check raised me. The turn was a J which looked like a great card, but when I raised my opponenet after he bet the turn, he quickly 3 bet me. The river was a blank, he bet, I called and he showed me AA! I dropped $1,200 on that one hand and all of a sudden I was stuck $1,000 on the day. I had to just sort of stare at the screen for a minute after that one.

The money really moves in $100/$200! I wanted to keep playing, but thought better of it and called it a day. I think I'll give it another go if I find myself ahead $2,000 for the day sometime soon.

In other good news, I cleared my $5,000 bonus for reaching 500,000 points today (even though it's a bonus for hitting 500,000 points they make you earn another 25,000 before the actually give it to you - kind of stupid). Along with the money I made from Matt at the WSOP this is turning out to be a pretty profitable month!

Man, that jack of clubs was SWEEEEEEEET!

Even More Easy Money?

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog may remember a few months ago when I made $400 as the result of a banking problem on Pokerstars. In that instance a widthdrawal that I made was delayed about 3 weeks and since it was a $2,000 widthdrawal and they were offering everyone who was affected by the problem 20% of the amount they were taking out, $400 was added to my net worth out of thin air.

Recently something similar happened. A month or so ago I played a few tournaments on fulltiltpoker.com and then cashed out my total balance of $881. I deposited the check and it went through normally. Then a few days ago I got an e-mail telling me with no explaination that I'd made two deposits: one of $881 and another of $100. I looked in my account and sure enough there was $981 sitting in there even though I'd made no deposits and no money had come out of my bank account.

I e-mailed support asking what was going on and they told me that since there had been a problem with my last cashout they were crediting the amount back to my account and adding another $100 to cover any bank fees.

At the very least I've made $100 here, but I think I've in fact made a free $981. Like I said it's been about a month since I deposited that first check which seems like more than enough time for it to bounce.

While there's never a bad time to pick up a grand, part of me wishes something like this could have happened to me when I was about 15 when I REALLY would have appreciated it.

144th Place for Matt

Sorry it took me 24 hours after I got the news to put up this post. Matt went broke about 4 hours into play on Saturday. Here is what he had to say is his last e-mail.


Hi all,

As a lot of you know from following online, I got eliminated in 144th place. That was worth about $41,800. I'm a tad disappointed, but certainly happy overall. I have notes from the entire tournament, and over the course of the next week, I'll type them up and send them out, so that anyone who is interested in hearing how the tournament went can read about it.

In my final hand, with the blinds at 8K-16K, the button made it 35K. It was folded to me in the BB, and I pushed all-in for about 250K with pocket tens. He thought for a while and called with K-J and flopped a jack, and bing bang boom, that was it.

I just got word that he is either the chip leader or among the chip leaders, which is friggin scary since he was really not a good player. He had all his chips at risk with J-J against A-A, in a situation where it was obvious that his opponent had pocket jacks beat. But he ends up flopping a set of jacks and turning quad jacks, so I guess that is how you get the chip lead at the World Series. That, and calling 250K with king-high. :-) Que lastima.

Everyone in Vegas has their money already. I will see all you California people over the course of the next week to make sure you get your shares.

Thanks for all of the support. And hey, let's do this again sometime! :-)

Regards,
Matt

Good work Matt! I have to say that the money I made on the tournament was the easiest money I've ever made. 10% of $41,800 is of course $4,180, but I actually ended up making more than that!

On Saturday morning my good friend Jake e-mailed me and said he wanted more of Matt's action than the 1% he had. He wanted to know if I'd be willing to sell a little of the action that I had. So I sent him the following e-mail:

I have an offer for you and here is how I came up with it. The total prize pool at this years main event was $64,333,600. So far they've paid out $13,527,307 leaving
$50,806,293 left up for grabs.

There are a total of 136,880,000 chips in play and matt has 308,000 which is .225%. .225% of $50,806,293 is $114,314. So 1% is worth about $1,143 but I'll sell you 1% for the bargin price of $1,086 (which of course comes with a refund of $386 already built in). Let me know what you think.

Happily for me Jake decided he wanted 2% and while I was feeling conflicted about giving up a little bit of my piece of the pie, I thought it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Sorry Jake!

Anyway congrats again to Matt!

Matt's Post Day 4 E-mail

Here's what Matt had to day after day 4:

I've heard that some of you are following the action online. That's pretty cool. I actually called Dave to tell him about a hand I was involved in, and before I could tell him about it, he told me he had read the hand online. Pretty cool.

So yes, I am still alive. We are down to 189 players. I am guaranteed $38,600.

The bad news is that I did not make too much forward progress in my chip count. I ended the day with 308,000, and the average stack right now is about 750,000. That means that I have my work seriously cut out for me tomorrow. But as I keep telling myself, anything can happen as longas I'm still in.

I was down as far as $200,000 but then made some upward progress from there.

I also moved all-in at one point with A-K on a flop of 10-5-3. Thankfully I was not called.

The sickest hand (which is the one that was broadcast on www.pokernews.com) went as follows. With the blinds at 4,000-8,000, the first player made it 20,000 to go. Three people called, which was really unusual, since our table wasn't typically loose. When it got to me in the small blind, I found pocket queens. There was already over 90,000 in the pot, and I felt that the only player I really had to worry about was maybe the original raiser, or maybe the first guy that called him. Anyway, I raised to 140,000. When it got back to the first raiser, he immediately looked at me and said, "How much does he have left? 240,000? Ok, I'm all in." The next guy folded what he said was pocket jacks. The next guy calls with what turned out to be ace-king. The next guy folded, and I just couldn't see how I could call in that spot. I was 90% sure he had aces, or else I figured he had to have at least pocket kings to move in so quickly. At any rate, I folded, at which point he turns up king-queen offsuit. It was a sick and bizarre play, and the worst part is that it cost me a HUGE pot. If he folds instead of making that wacky play, I'm probably getting called by the jacks and the ace-king, and given that the board never had a card higher than nine, I could easily have gotten up to 900,000 from that hand. Instead, I was down to 240,000 and fighting for my life. In fact, I still am. We're coming back to a brief period of 5K-10K blinds, and then it goes up from there.

I've said it four times, so I might as well say it a fifth: I'm clearly an underdog to make it through tomorrow. I will need to get very lucky and catch some cards, or make some plays against some really good players, or else I might not be around very long. But I've made it this far, so who the hell knows, right?

Play starts at noon tomorrow. They have running updates on www.pokernews.com and I think also on www.worldseriesofpoker.com for anyone who is interested.

If I somehow make it through, then we will be looking at some REAL money. That, as Dave says, would be some shit.



Good luck Matt!

Matt Still Alive at the WSOP!

Matt continues to do his thing at the main event of the WSOP. At the end of Day 4 there are 189 players remaining and Matt has about 300,000 in chips. The average stack is a little over 700,000 so Matt has a little work to do. But when you consider that when the players come back blinds will be 5000/10,000 with a 1,000 ante for another 40 minutes (for some reason they decided to stop play early and right in the middle of a level - weird) and then go to 6,000/12,000 with a 2,000 ante for 2 hours he really has enough that he's no where near desperation mode.

Right now Matt is guarenteed a payout of at least $38,600 ($3,860 for me! Yay!). Moving up to 157th or better will put another $3,200 onto that and then the pay jumps start getting big and more frequent. 99th is $51,466 and 90th is $64,333. I won't even go beyond that since my keyboard will probably short out from all the drool.

Also of note I'm being a very lame friend and not making the trip out to Vegas tomorrow. I told everyone including Matt that I'd make the trip if he made it through day 4, but I've since had the realization that I'm still Vegased out from the 9 days I spent there a few weeks ago. If he makes in through tomorrow I'm going to have to go no matter how I feel.

Keep up the good work Matt!

The End of Day 3 for Matt

Here's what Matt had to say in his latest e-mail:

We are in the money! We got there at about 11:30 PM tonight, and I just finished play at about 2:30 AM. I believe we are down to about 480 players, and I think I am guaranteed about $27,000, but I'm not sure of the exact numbers. You should go to www.worldseriesofpoker.com to check the latest, since I am too tired to do that now.

I have $268,000 in chips. The average stack is about $285,000 so I am slightly below average but doing fine. We are coming back to blinds of $2,500-$5,000 with a $500 ante, so it will be fast. In other words, we will probably play down from 480 players to about 100. As I've said every day, I am definitely not a favorite to make it through all of Day Four. But if I can do it, that would certainly be sweet.

I had Brandon Cantu at my table for most of the day, who is probably the best tournament player in the world that no one has heard of. He played outstanding, and made it very difficult to make any moves or get out of line. I also had Jeremy Joseph, the chip leader with $1.6 million at my table, so I'm just happy that we get to re-draw tomorrow. I'll take my chances against a new lineup.

Two hands of note. When I had about 125,000, I was lucky enough to pick up pocket aces and have someone else find pocket kings. We got all the money in, and the aces held up. That was pretty huge, and assured me that I would finish in the money.

The second hand was a little sicker, near the very end of the night. With blinds of $2,000-$4,000 I made it $14,000 with pocket queens under-the-gun. A pretty strong player called and Cantu called, and they both had position on me. The flop came K-8-3. I made up my mind that I was going to check-raise Cantu. However, the player between us came out with a $30,000 bet. Cantu folded, and for whatever reason I decided that I was going to take my stand there. I pushed all-in for about $160,000. He thought and thought and said, "I think we have the same hand." He kept saying, "I think we have the same hand," which told me that he had A-K and that I was in very deep shit when he called. In fact, I couldn't see how he would fold. But remarkably, he decided in the end that I must have had pocket aces the way I played it, and he threw it away. Phew. That could have been the end, but instead I get to come back and take another shot.

I'm tired, but feeling pretty good. It's nice to think that I have roughly a 1-in-500 chance of being the next World Champion. It's way too early to be thinking like that, but on the other hand, it's hard not to.

Thanks again to Jeremy for his constant support at the Rio, and to Alan for giving me rides even at 2 in the morning.

Play starts at 1 PM tomorrow (or I guess it's today). I'll let you know how it goes. Best of luck to all of us.

Regards,
Matt


Go get those bastards Matt! If he makes it through today I think I'm going to make an emergency trip to Vegas!

Matt in the Money!

Matt has done his thing and made it to the money in the main event! About 20 minutes after I put up my last post Matt called to say he'd won a few pots and was up to about 150,000! This was great news.

He meandered through the day going up to about 175,000 and then back down to 125,000 before picking up AA vs KK and doubling up with about 725 players left!

It took forever for the players to go from 700 down to the magic number of 666 remaining players. Just after making the money Matt had 237,000 chips and was guaranteed a pay day of $21,230! Of course only 37% of that is going to Matt since he sold off a good chunk of his action before the tournament.

For those of you who are wondering what the other payouts look like here they are:

1st $9,119,517
2nd $5,790,024
3rd $4,503,352
4th $3,763,515
5th $3,088,012
6th $2,412,510
7th $1,769,174
8th $1,286,672
9th $900,670
10-12th $591,869
13-15th $463,201
16-18th $334,534
19-27th $257,334
28-36th $193,000
37-45th $154,400
46-54th $135,100
55-63rd $115,800
64-72nd $96,500
73-81st $77,200
82-90th $64,333
91-99th $51,466
100-162nd $41,816
163-225th $38,600
226-288th $35,383
289-351st $32,166
352-414th $28,950
415-477th $27,020
478-540th $25,090
541-603rd $23,160
604-666th $21,230


For those of you who are wondering what my 10% of the action would be worth on the open market the 237,000 chips that Mat has are .173% of the chips in play and the total prize pool is $64,333,600 so his chips are worth $111,297 and my 10% is worth about $11,000. Of course if that expectation might not be realized so if there are any buyers out there I'll give up my piece for $10,000!The most exciting part is there is about a 1 in 650 chance of me taking home close to $1,000,000. Think about that for a second. I've had plenty of 1 in 1,000 shots come through for me before so I'm really starting to dream big here!

Good luck Matt!

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!