Note to the Backers

Backers I told you that you wouldn't be in on any satellites where pokerstars added seats to the prize pool. I'm going to make and exception becauase there is one with lots of added value, but a hefty price tag as well. It's a 50,000 FPP (worth $750) buy in satellite to the $10,300 event. Pokerstars is adding one seat and there are only 34 people signed up with 1 minute to go. Thats like adding $300 a person to the prize pool. Not something I can pass up, but $750 is a lot for one satellite. Good luck to us all!

WCOOP Small Change of Plans

For some reason I got confused about the start time of event #6 $109 NLH WCOOP event and slept right through the registration period. Who cares about a $109 no limit tournament anyway right?

So it's time for plan B, and plan B is event #7 $215 pot limit 5-card draw! Ask me what I know about 5-card draw...NOTHING!

Well not quite nothing, but I can saw for sure that I haven't played more than a few hundred hands of high draw in my poker career (neglecting my pre-teen and early teen years). But let me tell you why I think I have a chance.

1) Despite what you might think from TV and movies, nobody plays draw.
2) The math is the same as other poker variations so I can figured out on the fly what I should do in many situations.
3) Nobody plays draw.
4) Tournament tactics transfer from game to game
5) Lastly, nobody plays draw.

Nobody plays draw because it's boring as hell. One of the reasons it's so boring is the strategy is fairly simplistic and there are only two betting rounds. So I don't expect to be surrounded by draw experts who ruthlessly stomp me. Instead I should be up against a bunch of other tournament players who are working out the kinks as they go just like me. I like my chances of doing that better.

As an added bonus pokerstars has guaranteed a $200,000 prize pool which means if there are fewer than 930 entrants there will be money added to the prize pool. 4 minutes to start time there are 559 players signed up and I expect there will be between 700 and 800 when the hour long late registration is done.

At 1:30 I have event #8 $215 limit hold'em and I have a few other non WCOOP tournaments on my schedule today. Hopefully I can make some magic happen.

WCOOP Event #5 underway!

Event #5 is $109 8-game mixed. We started with 1,779 players each with 3,000 chips. In this format every five minutes the game changes. Starting with 2-7 triple draw lowball, followed by limit hold'em, limit Omaha hi-lo, razz, 7-card stud, stud hi-lo, PLO and no limit hold'em. So after 40 minutes you will have played a few hands of each game in the mix. This format suit me very well because I play all of the games well if not very well and most of the other players aren't comfortable with all the games (it's usually the triple draw or one of the Omaha's that they have trouble with).

This tournament is meant to go quickly since it has such a small buy in relative to the other WCOOP tournaments and because it has a late start time. After and hour we've lost almost 30% of the field. In contrast, later in the series there is a $320 8-game tournament where we'll start with 5,000 chips and the game will change every ten minutes. Also at the end of the series there is a $2,100 8-game tournament where the game will change every 15 minutes and you get 10,000 chips to start.

Off to a slow start I only have 2,000 of the 3,000 chips I started with left and we're already playing 200/400 stakes so it could be a quick exit.

Event #3 Recap

I finished 248th which paid $361. I was down to about 10,000 and then I got it all in with AA85 vs AKKK which is about as far as you're ever going to be ahead preflop in PLO. That brought me back to 20K which was still only half of average.

I slipped back to 15K or so and then got dealt AQT2 with 2 spades and two diamonds. The blinds were 500/1,000 and I brought it in for 3K. The big blind who was a bronze star and played like it called me with KTT5 which is total garbage. The flop came down AT5 giving me two pair and my opponent a set of tens. He bet 3,000 and I moved all in. No miracles and that was it.

Since I almost didn't put this one on my schedule I feel great about this result.

In the Money!

I made the money in the PLO. Right now I have 29,800 chips. Average is 32,500 and I'm in 194th place of 420. In order to show a $1,000 profit I have to make it all the way to 54th so there is a long way to go before this gets serious. Still it's nice to get a cash upder my belt in this years WCOOP.

Event #3 update

I've posted a few updates on the twitter part of the blog on the right side, but I thought it was time for a more significant update. My table is interesting. There is one guy "annekchillo" who is playing a ton of hands and taking some of them too far. I'm surprised he hasn't gone broke. Instead he's up to 22K.

Another guy is the opposite. If he's betting or in there at all he's got something good. The other players haven't made a strong impression on me, but I don't feel like any of them are great.

I've slipped a little and now have 18,000 chips which puts me in 249th of 937.

I've decided to pass on the $109 second chance PLO. Event #5 starts at 5:00 and if I go broke in Event #3 I want to take a break. If I don't get a break at least I should make the money.

WCOOP Event #3 $215 PLO 6-max underway!

For those of you who don't know what Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) is let me tell you! Everything works just like hold'em except you get 4 cards instead of 2. In hold'em you use the 5 cards on the board and the 2 cards in your hand to make your best 5 card hand. On the other hand in PLO you use TWO cards from your hand and THREE from the board to make your best 5 card hand. So if you get dealt JJJJ you don't have four of a kind, all you have is a pair of jacks. Of if you have AAAK and the board is A 2 3 4 5, you don't have 4 aces and you don't have a 5 high straight, your best hand in 3 aces. Also in no limit hold'em you can bet as many chips as you have in your stack, whereas in PLO you can only bet as much as is in the pot already.

We started with 2,738 players each with 5,000 chips. I signed up about 50 minutes late (there is no penalty for doing so, you just miss the first few levels) because I was busy taking care of e-mails, but won a big hand early.

I got dealt 4567 with the 57 of hearts. Hands where all of your cards are in order are strong because they lend themselves to many straight possibilities. Four players just called to me and I made it 300 to go. Only one player called. The flop came down 6 6 8 with two hearts, meaning I had three of a kind, a straight draw, a flush draw, a full house draw and a straight flush draw. The value of the straight and flush draw were diminished by the fact that there was a pair on the board, but it was still a pretty strong flop.

I bet 750 into the 750 chip pot and my opponent called. The turn was the J of clubs putting two clubs out there. I wasn't really sure what to do here, but I decided to check. When my opponent bet 750 into the 2,250 pot I read him for weakness and moved all in for about 3,500. He thought for a second and then called with AK97 with 3 clubs which was a straight draw and a flush draw, but I had a lot of his cards locked out since some of his outs would make me a full house or a flush. In fact only 8 cards (three 10's and 5 clubs) would make him the best hand. The river was another jack and I took down the 9,000 chip pot.

After a few more small ones I'm up to 10,450 with 1,955 players left. The edge of the money is 420th which pays $296 and 1st place is $86,247.