What's left in the FTOPS X?

Tonight I have Event #18 which is $322 Razz. After that I have four events left: $216 NL Hold'em, $109 PLO with rebuys, $129 Knockout NL Hol'em and the "main event" which is $535 NL hold'em with a guaranteed prize pool of $2,500,000.

The real main event is the $5,200 NL hold'em 6-max two day tournament that goes off on Saturday (and Sunday if you make it that far). Despite my big hit early in the FTOPS, I'm not ready to fire five large on one online tournament. But I am going to take about $1,000 and play a few $300 or $500 satellites to see if I can win my way into the field (unlike in the WCOOP if I win a seat I'm actually going to use it!).

I still have loose plans to go play a $1,000 tournament at Lucky Chances Casino in Colma, CA on Sunday the 23rd, but it's close an hour away depending on traffic and I have some concerns about showing up and having the tournament be sold out (they limit it to about 200 entrants since they only have so many tables). If I'm feeling super motivated I might haul myself out there a few days ahead of time and sign up early.

Even if I blank the rest of the way the FTOPS X has been an unqualified success. But let's hope that's not going to happen!

FTOPS Event #13 Recap

I'm going to make this short since I slept in until noon today and I really need to get to work. I got off to an awesome start in the $535 HORSE tournament, running my starting stack of 5,000 all the way up to 20,000. Then I got done in somewhat by the crazy play of one opponent when I had a draw I couldn't fold (tip: if it's capped three way on 4th street in 7 card stud DON'T RAISE AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY WITH ONE PAIR OF 3'S THE REST OF THE WAY!)and party by a weak tournament structure.

Fulltilt has done a really poor job setting up the blind increases in all the FTOPS tournaments. In the tournament in which I finished second earlier in the FTOPS with 8 players left the average stack was 15 big blinds! This is plainly absurd for tournaments that are supposed to be a big deal. With stakes like those it's hard to play a hand without getting pot committed.

Along those lines there's no way with more than an average stack you should be able to get most of your chips in on one hand in a limit tournament well before you make the money. If this were a $50 HORSE tournament fine, but for $500 it would be nice to have a little more room to maneuver.

Anyway I came up short in the end. No FTOPS until Thursday night for me.

FTOPS X Event #12 Recap

ACK! Major collapse! Here's what happened in Hand of the Day #4!

I was crusing along nicely in this one when a rather inocuious hand led to my demise. With blinds of 120/240 I was in the small blind with 77 and an almost twice average stack of about 20,000. The button who had about 35,000 chips open raised to 560 and after thinking about reraising I decided to just call. I was hoping to keep the pot small and either get to the showdown cheap or take a stab at the pot and pick it up with a bet.

The flop came down KQ3 with two spades. I checked and my opponent bet about 800. I decided to just call again with the thinking that if he didn't have a K or a Q it would be hard for him to bet the turn and if he did bet the turn I could then fold with some degree of confidence that I was beat.

The turn was a 7! "AH HA!" I thought. Now I was hoping he had something good enough to pay me off. I checked, my opponent bet 2,100 and after a short stall I made it 6,000 to go. When he called me I thought "He's got a king! I've got him now! Double up here I come!"

The river was a third spade and an instant after I'd moved all in I thought "Oh shit, I hope he wasn't calling me with the flush draw that just got there!" I was so focused on the big cards and thinking that he'd connected with the K or the Q that for some reason I totally ignored the flush draw. When he called me with no hesitation I was pretty sure I was dead. To add insult to injury he had T7 of spades meaning that I only had one card in the deck that could make me a set and cost me all of my chips.

This is not one of those hands where I can go away thinking there was nothing I could have done differently. I certainly could have reraised before the flop which probably would have won me the pot right there. And even if it didn't the hand would have played out differently which might have allowed me to either bet enough on the turn to get rid of my opponent or end up saving some of my chips. Also while I might have had to call an all in bet on the river had I checked, I suspect my opponent would have bet less than my whole stack. I'd probably be left with only 3,000 or 4,000 chips, but that's better than zero!

While it might seem like kind of a weak play there is some merit to just folding those stupid sevens before the flop! After all part of good poker is avoiding tough decisions and tough situations, and there aren't too many spots where 77 is going to play easily out of position against a big stack.

Hopefully the HORSE tournament tonight will go better!

Thanks for the Comments!

Thanks to all of you who've posted comments recently. I spend a fair amount of time writing these posts and it's always nice to know that people are reading them and rooting for me!

Recently I checked the stats that the website keeps regarding readers and this month I've had about 125 unique users come to check out my blog. That means about 100 people I don't know are reading about my ups and downs. I'd like to have that number up to 1,000, but I'd probably have to post everyday and get a little more meat in terms of strategy tips to do that.

Anyway thanks again for the comments!

Event #12 Underway!

Event #12 ($216 1/2 PLO 1/2 PLH) started with 936 players. After an hour of play I'm in 12th of 728.

I got off to a super hot start. About five minutes in I got KK was up against AQ and I think another hand with a Q in it. The flop came down Qxx and I got all of one players chips and about 40% of the other's! That took me from 5,000 chips to about 12,000 and put me in first place where I stayed for about 40 more minutes.

In the first Omaha round I, busted someone and went from 12,000 to 17,000. I got dealt KKxx and I was up against ATxx with the AT of hearts. The flop came down KQx with two hearts and we got it all in on the flop. The turn was a heart, but the river paired the board and I took down a nice pot.

In fact now that I think about it, I've gotten about a few hours worth of monster hands in the first hour. I had 22 twice, limped both times, and flopped a set both times, once making quads on the turn. I had other hand where I got dealt JT vs KQ. I made the nut straight and my opponent made two pair.

The only hand that really went against me was one where I flopped the nut flush in the Omaha, I was up against a smaller flush and he made a runner, runner full house.

Hopefully the good luck continues!

FTOPS Events #10 &11 Recap

Not a very exciting day in the FTOPS. In event #10 ($322 Mixed Hold'em) I ran my starting stack of 3,000 up to about 4,500 before losing half of what I had when I missed a nut flush draw. The rest went gradually, mostly during the limit rounds where I raised with a few hands, missed and was forced to fold once I ran into resistance. My last 1,000 chips went in with KJ suited in the NL round, I got called by AJ and that was it. I finished about 400 of 667.

In event #11 ($1060 NL Hold'em) I only lasted half an hour. I've played something like 60 tournament with buy ins of over $1,000 and this is the quickest I've ever been eliminated. I lost half my chips with KK vs 44 when the flop came down with a 4 on it and the rest eventually went in with AJ vs 77.

On the other side of the coin I did win a little over $2,000 in the cash games today so I'm exactly feeling bad.

Tomorrow I have $216 half pot limit hold'em, half pot limit Omaha at 11 and $535 HORSE at 6. These are two tournaments that both look very interesting to me. Hopefully I can do something good in one or both of them.

FTOPS Events #10 & #11 Preview

Event #10 is $322 Mixed Hold'em and is underway with 667 entrants. This is great news since they came up well short of the $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. In fact there is a $35,226 overlay which is about $53 a person. This might not seem like a ton of money given the stakes, but it's not nothing.

Event #11 is the biggest on my schedule (assuming I don't win my way into the $5,000 event) and is $1,000 NL Hold'em. I have no idea what size field we might be looking at at 6 pm on a Monday but they've guaranteed 1.5 million dollars so they must be expecting 1,500 players. Right now there are only 243 signed up so I'm drooling over the possibility of only 1,000 showing up. Now that would be an serious overlay.