Cruisin' for a Bruisin!

After a week of vacation I'm back home and I have a post laden with F-Bombs for you! In general my vacation was great, but I have a few choice words (or more than a few...paragraphs) for a certain operation.

The main purpose of this vacation was to go on a 4 night cruise to Mexico with my wife and two of our closest friends (our son stayed with is grandparents and got 4 days of rule bending grandparent love).

I got a little sea sick (think 2 out of 10 with 0 being no seasickness and 10 being puking over the rail the whole time) once we pulled out into the open ocean even though we were sailing through calm waters. The food was better than I expected, and since we were paying for drinks they were very good as well. We drank a lot, sang karaoke (poorly, but with lots of energy) 3 of the 4 nights, and took part in a few of the organized cruise activities.

The highlight of the trip was a one hour Kayak tour of "The Bufadora" which literally means "blowhole". It's a geologic formation that is essentially a long, thin tunnel that fills up with a mixture or air and water as waves come in and then shoots the water between 30 and 100 feet in the air based on the intensity of the wave. We also spent some time paddling around the surrounding bay looking at star fish, rock formations and whatnot.

It was pretty amazing and was only over shadowed by the tacos we had afterwards. We had to take a bus ride from the boat to the Bufadora and on the way back our tour guide (who was a local) took us to a hole in the wall taco stand that was packed. The were making the tortillas and grilling the meat right in front of us. When a taco got to your mouth, 60 seconds earlier the meat was on the grill and the tortilla didn't exist yet. It was awesome.

But this blog is about poker and gambling so now I'm going to talk about the casino on the ship! Here is what I have to say about the Carnival Cruise Line casino (and this is in no way based on my results which were slightly negative, but not unreasonable)...FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO!

I'm not sure how many casinos I've been to, but it's at least 50 and probably closer to 100. This was without a doubt the worst one. Allow me to explain why starting with the less significant and moving to the down right ridiculous.

There was a $5 craps game that had 2 times odds as the maximum odds you could take on a passline or come bet. I've never seen that before. But more annoying was how quickly they moved the dice. On a few occasions the stickman was pushed the dice to the shooter before the other dealers were done getting the odds bets from the previous roll set!

Another indication of the rushed atmosphere was that I didn't get at pass line bet down before the come out roll two times in a row. I don't think that's ever happened to me before and I've been drunk at a lot of craps tables for hours and hours. Over the course of 30 minutes there were a half dozen occasions where I thought "Holy Shit! There are the dice! I can't believe the rolled already!" To make things worse, the dealers were making mistakes here and there, so I didn't have confidence that I was being paid correctly (which meant I had to really pay attention) and most of the other players didn't know what they were doing so I had to make sure no one was going to scoop up my money thinking it was theirs.

But that's not really that bad. Worse was that they adjusted the payouts on some of the games! For example they paid 3 to 1 on a flush in 3 card poker instead of 4 to 1. That might not seem like a big deal, but in a normal Vegas casino 3 card poker has a house edge of 2.3% meaning for every $100 you bet in the long run you can expect to get back $97.70. Not too bad. With the table they were using the house edge was 7.3%! ACK! For a comparison roulette (which is one of the worst games) has a house edge of 5.25%. They'd also made similar draconian adjustments to the payout scales on Let it Ride and Caribbean stud which were the only other games that they offered using payout tables.

To sum up they made regular casino games HARDER to beat! The system that Vegas has used to build all those billion dollar hotels was too soft for them! I don't even want to know what they did to the slot machines.

As a brief aside we at dinner at a very large round table and one fellow kindly informed us, as if he was sharing a real gem that we should most certainly take to heart, that "craps and roulette are the best games in the casino." Why thank you kind gent for sharing your expert opinion and giving us lay folk the vital information we need to win in the casino. I'll get right to the roulette wheel. In your opinion what numbers are best to bet?

Some other douchebag (and it's a kindness to leave it at just that) was talking about his "system" for beating slot machines. Shortly after he had to think about hitting 7 in blackjack. You've got a 5 and a 2 pal! Even though they're trying to screw you at every opportunity, there didn't put any 15's in the deck!

Now is where I get extra worked up. On the website they go on and on about how it's a cashless boat and you can bet everything with this magic card. When you get on they give you a card that's liked to your credit card and you can use it to buy anything on the ship. It's also your room key and what you need to show to get off and on the boat at the various ports. In the casino you can buy chips with this card, but they charge you a 3% fee! You bastards are going to gouge me on every game in the house and before you do it, you want to take 3% off the top! FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO!

But wait! There's more! You can go to old downtown in Vegas, play $1 roulette and drink for free all night, but the drinks were normal price in the casino! $4.95 plus an included mandatory 15% tip for a Budweiser!

Which leads me to another point. They had a group of $9 drinks on the menu all over the ship. They were good drinks and I was fine paying $9 for them. If you brought a receipt for one of those drinks to the casino cashier they'd give you a "$5 match play" card. Sounds like five bucks off a drink right?" WRONG! If you get promotional chips in a normal casino you play them like normal chips. You bet $5 and if you win you get a normal $5 chip while your promotional chip stays there. If you lose they take it. With these $5 match cards, first of all you had to put $5 of your own money into play as well to use it, and second of all they take the card if you lose AND if you win AND IF YOU PUSH! What's that all about?

I was with my wife and we went up to a black jack table, put down our card with a $5 chip on it, got a 20, the dealer busted and when he went to pay us he put down two $5 chips and took our card. My wife asked what was going on. The dealer and the pit boss then went on a rambling 60 second explanation of how the cards worked using the phrase "just like money."

Just like money? It's not anything like money you dicks! Did I mention that they were dicks? Because if I didn't allow me to now mention that these guys were total dicks! They treated us like we were trying to pull something and like we were idiots, instead of just explaining how it works. Try this you dicks "If you win we pay you an extra $5, but the card is only good for ONE hand and we have to take it every time, win, lose or push (slight understanding frown)."

I'm sure it's not great fun to work in a cruise ship casino, but everyone in there looked and acted like they were in the last 10 minutes of a 16 hour shift.

We haven't even gotten to the worst part yet, but before we get to that let me talk about the poker they had. There was an electronic table with a touch screen at every seat and a large sceen in the middle of the table. I've read a few articles about these tables, but I'd never seen one in person. My review of the table is about the only thing positive I can say about the casino. Actually it's not entirely positive, because I think they should have had a real table, with a real dealer and chips, because that's much more fun and that's what cruise ships are supposed to be about!

But the table itself worked perfectly. The game was $1/$2 blinds no limit hold'em and you could buy in for a maximum of $200 with your magic card. Actually now that I think about it there was one major flaw in the table, which I'm sure was just the cruise people choosing the options. There was nothing about posting blinds to get your first hand. When you bought in, they just dealt you in. If you sat out and missed the blinds when you sat back in they'd just post them for you without asking no matter what position you were in. I guess they thought that would be too complicated for some reason.

When you got dealt in your touch screen would have a picture of cards face down and if you touched them the top corners would peal up so you could see what you had. When you action got to you, you've have a set of options just like in online poker (you couldn't declare what you were going to do before the action got to you like you can in online poker). You'd select an option like check or fold or whatever and then you have to touch the top right corner of the screen to confirm that's really what you wanted to do. If you wanted to bet or raise there were pictures of $1, $5, $25 and $100 chips which you could touch to create a bet amount. So if you wanted to bet $39 you'd touch the $25, the $5 twice and the $1 four times, then touch the "bet $39" button, followed by the "Confirm Bet $39" button. It sounds like kind of a mess, but it was actually pretty easy to use and the action moved along smoothly.

The biggest problem with the poker was the rake. In the games I play they take $1 for every pot over $20 that goes to the flop, $2 for a pot over $40 and $3 for a pot over $60 with $3 being the max (and I get a bunch of it back in bonuses, FPPs and rakaback). In this game they took 10% of the pot up to $40 and some piece beyond that. I didn't play for too long, there weren't a ton of big pots, and I wasn't really focused on working out the precise rake system, but I saw $8 come out of a $150 or so pot. Since most pots were less than $40 they were taking 10% out of most pots. On average the players were in for about $100 each. That means if you took ALL of the money on the table it was enough to pay the rake for 5 or 6 hours (Maybe 200-250 hands).

I lost a few big hands and decided to call it quits with $37 left in front of me. Foolishly I thought this would be credited back to the account that it came from. What was I thinking? They'd have no chance to screw me over if they did things that way! I found out on the last night of the cruise at 11 pm as I was cashing in a few chips that I had to give them my card and they'd give me $37 in cash. Otherwise that money was gone into la la land. It didn't say that anywhere. The only reason I found out was I was in the casino when they made an announcement. I'd been in there for 5 or 6 hours over the course of the cruise and didn't hear a whisper before the 11th hour. FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO!

I know this has been a long post, but I have yet to get to THE WORSE GOUGING OF ALL TIME! Yes folks I placed not one, but THE TWO WORST WAGERS OF MY ENTIRE LIFE on this cruise.

The first was bingo. They had a large theater for shows and such and on the first night we were there they had bingo (they had it there other nights, but we didn't go). For $10 you could get one bingo card, and for $20 you could get 3 cards. There was some other reason for this gathering other than the bingo, but I can't quite remember what it was. Maybe 200 people were in the room and it looked like half of them were playing bingo. Without a doubt they'd collected a few grand $40 of which came from our group. Guess what the prizes were? ONE $500 prize. Are you fucking kidding me? They played one game which took five minutes and paid out one $500 prize regardless of the money collected.

But wait! It gets worse! There was also a "black jack tournament." Notice the quotes. Calling this a black jack tournament is like calling goat a finely tuned thoroughbred. They told us that the tournament would last from 7:30 to 10:30 and I was surprised that they would run something that would take so long. It sounded like fun. I figured everyone would start with x number of chips and the minimum bet would gradually be raised or we'd play a bunch of hands and whoever had above a certain chip count, say in the top 25% or whatever would move on and then we'd do the same thing again.

Here is the way it actually worked. For $20 you got ten $100 tournament chips. You had 7 hands to turn those chips into as much as possible. We started at 7:30 and at 11:15 the 7 players with the highest chip total would come back and play 7 more hands at "the final table." By the time the action was underway there were 30 or so people signed up to play. The first set of 7 players played their 7 hands, and the best of them ended up with $1,800 in chips. Everyone in my group played in the second round and the best of us ended up with $1,500 in chips.

Here is where things get fishy. The action started at 7:30 and went until 10:30 and they allowed people to enter more than once. While I wasn't there the whole time as far as I can tell they ran this set up at one table constantly from 7:30 until 11:00. Each round lasted something like 6 or 7 minutes and at most 10 minutes. Every time 7 new players sat down that should have been $140 into the prize pool to be payed out to the players at the final table. Right? Isn't that how this should work? Isn't this just something fun to do on the ship or at worst a way to get people into the casino? After all there was plenty of fun stuff to do on the ship that was free. Karaoke was free, mini golf was free, the water slide was free. Hell even the food was free, with 24 hour room service!

So after three and a half hours of collecting $140 from set after set of players every 7 minutes guess what the prizes were? ONE $500 PRIZE! That's right. One prize. $500 regardless of the amount of money collected.

Even if the rounds all took 10 minutes that would be 21 rounds which is $2,940. That's the conservative estimate of what they took in, and they paid out one $500 prize. What a bunch of dicks! Don't do that to your customers Carnival! What the hell is wrong with you! Take 10% off the top or even 20%, but paying out one $500 prize when you've taking in thousands is just wrong. Even the lottery pays out 60% of the money they take in.

I knew ahead of time that there was only one $500 prize on the line, but when we got there at 7:25 and signed up there were only 10 people registered. I thought it was going to be whoever signs up before or at about 7:30 is in the mix. But letting people play as many entries as they want and continuing to take entries for over 3 hours is nuts! The top chip counts were all over $16,000! Guess what? It ain't easy to turn 1,000 chips into 16,000 in 7 hands and that was the worst of the top 7! How many entries do you think that took?

One more time say it with me: FUCK YOU CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE CASINO! YOU'RE A BUNCH OF DICKS!

Everyone else who worked on the cruise was great or at least fine. The entertainment staff, the dining staff and certainly the bartenders, waiters and waitresses were all friendly and competent if not wonderful.

In other news, after my PANIC! post I have been doing amazingly well. In my last post I mentioned the tournament success. At my in law's house I played maybe 2 hours on Monday and won $700, and hour or two on Tuesday and won $550 and, and hour Wednesday and won $650. That makes 8 straight winning days with the worst of them being $500 to the good. Things have gone from about as bad as they could be, to great. I hope I can keep it up these last few days of the month and into November.

Two Final Tables

The only tournaments I've played since the WCOOP have been a handful of freerolls. But today with the plan of taking it easy I jumped into two multitables: a $109 no limit hold'em and a $5 with rebuys with one $25 add on no limit Omaha-8 (yes that is a wacky format).

The Omaha had 179 players and a first place prize of $800 and change. The only thing worth mentioning about this tournament was with 13 players left I was down to 129 chips. Though an insane series of double ups, triple ups and quadruple ups I got my stack all the say back up to 27,000 which still had me in last place! I increased my stack by a factor of 209 and was still in dead last! But while I was winning all of those pots other people were going broke and I went from 13th to 9th which made me a whopping extra $33. There was still a little satisfaction in making the final table and the monster turnaround. I'll try to remember it the next time I'm somewhat short chipped.

The final table of the $109 NLH was much more significant. I got off to a good start early with a double up holding AJ vs QQ. I have to think about that hand when I get pissed about the hand that I lost in the end. I also beat JJ with AKs with all of my chips at risk early.

Much, much later when the blinds were 2,000/4,000 (we each started the tournament with 3,000 chips and blinds of 10/20) I made two strong plays, but still got a little lucky.

On the first occasion, I was in the big blind with 130,000 chips or so and the player in the cutoff who had about 160,000 raised to 9,000. Every time without exception that the action had been folded to him on my big blind he'd raised (at least 10 times) and he always made it between 2X and 2.5X the big blind. I'm not sure why he kept doing it since I called at least half time time and every time I called I took the pot away from him.

The second to last time he made this play (there's a little hint about what he has coming to him) I had 97 of hearts and decided to call the extra 5,000 and see the flop. It came down T 8 5 with one heart giving me an open ended straight draw. I checked my opponent bet 10,000 and I check raised him to 30,000.

He thought for 30 seconds or so and I was trying to decide if I should go for it if he moved all in. Instead of going all in he made it 60,000 and I opted to call and see the next card before committing all of my chips. The turn was the 8 of hearts which meant I now had a flush draw to go along with my hand. It also looked like kind of a scary card for my opponent since I could easily have an 8. I figured I had enough to go for it since there was 140,000 in the pot and I only had 60,000 left so I bet out. After some thought my opponent folded and I was up to 200,000. In retrospect I think he thought that I was check raise bluffing the flop and he put in one more raise to try and resteal.

On the next round we got into it again. This time I had K5 of clubs and decided to take a flop after the villain min raised to 8,000. The flop came down 8 6 4 with one club. I checked and my opponent bet out 12,000. I decided to get aggressive. We were down to 20 players and the prize jumps were starting to get significant so I was hoping he'd be careful and bail out if I pushed him. Since his range was VERY broad, I figured I could blow him off his hand with a big raise. Also working for me was the fact that I had him covered by a lot, and a 7 or a king would likely make me the best hand even if I got called. I moved all in and he instantly called me with 89. Happily the turn was a 7, I made a straight and took down a huge pot. I had 280,000 chips and was in first place.

By the time we made the final table I was in 4th place and liking my chances. 9th place was only $900 or so and first place was $12,500 so it was nice that a few players dropped out quickly and I moved up the money ranks a bet before I got involved in any big hands.

When we got down to 5 handed, four of us had 300,000 or more and one player had 80,000 or so. I was guessing that if we could drop that one guy we could make a deal and split the remaining prize money. While 90% of the time playing it out is going to be in my favor in a tournament of this size and significance, given my recent struggles locking up some big bucks was my first priority. But the stupid Q6 of hearts got in the way of this glorious plan!

Playing 5 handed the blinds were 4K/8K with an ante, Mr. 80K folded and the next player made it 19K to go. The other two players called and it was on me with Q6 of hearts in the big blind. I had 400,000 chips and part of me said "what's the point of playing a hand here? Just wait until Mr. 80K is gone before you do anything fancy."

The other part of me said "You only have to put in another 11K to see a flop, there's already 68K in the pot and if you hit it hard you could bust someone." I decided the pot odds were too good to pass up. The flop came down Q 5 3 with two hearts.

"What the hell do I do now?" I thought. That was a strong flop for my hand, but I could easily be behind (this is why it's not good to get in there with Q6). I decided it would be best to check, see what everyone else did and go from there. To my great surprise everyone checked and the turn came out a non heart jack. Based on the flop action it looked like I had way the best hand.

The small blind bet out 28K which I knew was bullshit. That looked like a jack at best or more likely a total bluff. I thought about popping it, but I decided I'd try to get to showdown as cheaply and risk free as possible. Then the God damned button moved all in for 325K!

The small blind folded and it was back to me. My first thought was "this guys is full of shit too." I knew this was not a monster hand. First of all he checked last to act on the flop vs 3 opponents on a somewhat dangerous board and second of all it was a massive overbet. If he had a set he would have made it 100K or so, not 325K.

But, there was still Mr. 80K waiting to go broke and upon his or anyone else's exit I'd instantly pick up another $1,500. Did I really want to take this chance? There were close to 2,000,000 chips in play and if I called and won I'd have 40% of them and be in total command. If I lost I'd have 50K and one foot out the door.

After 15 seconds I trusted my read, put my balls on the chopping block, and called. My opponent had KJ and I made my flush on the river. Unfortunately it was KJ of hearts and he made a flush too! Bastard! For the record I was a 73% favorite when all of the money went in.

My remaining chips went out the window a few hands later when I lost KQ to AJ and that was it. 5th place paid $3,531! Less that I'd have had with one more break, but I caught my share of breaks already and $3,500 is still some nice bucks!

I'm on a nice little roll here. I've had five winning days in a row and picked up a little over $10,000 during that stretch. I have to admit that the me of 6 days ago would barely have believed that I could go on a run like this at such an opportune time. It's been well into the top 1% of my expectations. All of a sudden everything is back to good.

Now it's cruise time bitches!

Briefly

I got a call from my sister today. After reading my last post she was wondering if I was OK. I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm fine, if not good. I won $800 today in limited action, and after several very strong winning days in a row I feel like I'm back in command of my own destiny.

Moving forward I need to make sure that I always bail out from games that have become unfavorable and if there are no good games going on Pokerstars or AP, I need to just not play! If I stick to that I'm confident I can do what I need to do to make enough to get by. The big bucks might need to be put on hold for a while, but supporting my family is always goal #1 and I'm back to feeling like I can do that.

PANIC!

I try to have a good attitude and a positive outlook on the future. Objectively I can look back on the last 9 years that I've been playing poker and say that I've made steady improvement and that without a doubt I am a winner in every sense of the word. But in the back of my mind part of me still feels like I'm on summer vacation. I worry that this won't last forever and that someday I'm going to have to go try to finish school or get a job. With the exception of someone close to me dying, or my health failing, that is my greatest fear.

I've had a few runs where I've dropped a ton of money. Gobs of money. Shit loads of money. Not new TV money, new car money. Game show money. After these massive downswings it's impossible not to doubt yourself.

I like to keep at least $10,000 in online accounts to work with. That feels like the minimum I need. I've been fortunate to get that number up over $30,000 a few times, but there was once about 2 years ago that I was down to $500.

At that point I was mentally exploring every option at my disposal. I don't just have plan B. I always have plans C, D, E, F, and G in the works. Who can I borrow money from? How much do I need? What about going back to playing in person? Maybe I should try another site. I could start playing a different game or format. Maybe I should go back to dealing cards. Maybe we should move to southern California and live with my wife's parents for 6 months while I play at the Commerce. My wife could get a job and I could stay home and write a book and become and excellent cook.

It's hard to think about anything else. I bounced back from that $500 and again turned it into enough to make a strong living (that was shortly before my successful quest to become Supernova Elite).

Another time earlier in my career I had 8 losing days in a row. I'm not sure how much I lost, but I sure as hell wasn't going into day 9 thinking "No problem, I'm sure I'll be able to turn this around."

My worst month ever was March 2006. In January I'd started playing no limit cash games after struggling in the sit-n-go's that had been my focus for most of my career. I won $11,000 in January, and $17,000 in February playing $3/$6 blinds games and was feeling like the sky was the limit. Then I lost $11,000 in March which is still my worst month ever. The month started well so you can imagine the downswing it took for me to lose $11,000 for the month.

I mention all of this because I've been having some major trouble this month. At the start, I lost $6,000 over the course of 4 straight losing days. I didn't play any higher than $15/$30 and it was over a weekend which is supposed to be the best time to play!

After that I started exploring the other websites in earnest and was doing well for the most part. I wasn't killing it, but I was winning steadily. Then I dropped $4,000last Monday.

I'd been playing all day and was about to call it quits around 6, about an hour before dinner. Then I made it to the top of the waiting list for a great $15/$30 game and decided to sit down. I was losing $1,500 or so at that point and I was tired, but it was a game I knew I could beat no matter how I was feeling. Also I noticed two of the worst players in the universe had joined the waiting list behind me.

This $15/$30 game was the only one going at those stakes, but there was one player whose name I didn't recognize sitting waiting to start a new game. I was thinking that if I started playing him heads up, then maybe the goofs on the waiting list for the other game would join too. They never did.

I ended up playing this guy for 30-40 minutes and I got my doors blown off. I lost $1,000 to him in the first 5 minutes and another $1,000+ over the next half hour.

What gave me so much trouble was my opponent saw 100% of the flops regardless of preflop action so I had a lot of trouble putting him on a specific hand or even a range. In a 6 handed game or even a 3 handed game you can't get away with that. You'd get decimated. But playing heads up, especially in a format where the small blind is 2/3 of the big blind, you're always getting pretty good odds to call. Of course I think you could do better if you folded the bottom 20% of hands, but clearly this guy had committed.

Normally when you have someone who plays every hand preflop they are not a good player and make plenty of mistakes after the flop. But this guy played well after the flop.

Of course he got really lucky in the first 5 minutes winning the vast majority of the pots and all of the big ones. There was one hand where I had AK of clubs in the small blind (which is also the button in heads up) and raised. He three bet and I capped it. The flop came with 2 clubs and he bet into me. I raised and he three bet it. The turn was a brick and he check raised me. The river was a 6 and with both checked. He turned over 67 of clubs and took the pot with a pair of sixes. That was a $330 pot and not an isolated incident.

On top of taking every flop he took it to the turn 85% of the time as well. But the son of a bitch had great timing for letting his hand go. He literally called me down with king high no pair (which was the best hand) when I'd raised the turn and bet the river on one hand and then folded on the flop the very next hand when I had AA. I'd flop the nut straight and he'd fold. I'd have ace high and he'd fire into me relentlessly with 63 and hit the three on the river. He'd three bet semibluff me on the turn and get there while I was missing every draw. I wanted to scream!

Most of the time I just could not make a God damn pair and like I said I was up against a guy who was seeing every flop and calling me down with king high (and sometimes queen high) so I felt totally hand cuffed.

Towards the end of the match I looked up my opponent to see if he was playing any other games. He was sitting by himself waiting to play anyone who came along at two $30/$60 games and a $50/$100. That's not the kind of guy you want to play.

In the end I lost a little over $2,000 to him. If you think about it, we played maybe 125 hands (we were playing very fast so it could have been more like 150 or 175) and our average pot was at least $150 so that means he won something like 70 pots and I won 57. Without a doubt, short term luck fluctuations could be the reason I lost. No matter how good he was, losing that much in such a short time means I ran bad. Maybe he wasn't any good at all, and just ran hot. But it sure didn't feel that way. It felt like I'd been totally dismantled. Embarrassed. Eviscerated. Emasculated. Destroyed.

There was now doubt that I'd been beaten and I felt horrible. All the tension and anger that I was feeling while I was playing, turned into sadness and despair when I was done. I went for a walk down by the water, sat on a log and cried.

Like I said, I ended up losing about $4,000 on Monday. I took Tuesday off and on Thursday I lost another $2,000+. ACK! The problem with these losses isn't just the money. We have plenty of money in our long term savings to get us through and I've lost $2,000 in a day fifty times if not more. The problem with repeated losses is what they say about future prospects.

Online poker games and the state of the poker world is in a constant state of flux. Players come and go. Laws and regulations change. Fads pop up and fade away. New tactics are conceived, written down, taught and implemented. Just because you can beat a game today doesn't mean you'll be able to beat it in 6 months or a year.

I used to dominate $100 SNGs on Party Poker and then on Pokerstars. My ROI was over 10% for thousands and thousands of tournaments (I made over $10 a tournament). Then it was 5%. Then it was 2%. Over the course of a year I went from being able to make $500 a day playing 50 SNGs, to needing to play 80 a day to just make $160. I had to shift gears and start playing cash games to continue making a living and I'm always worried that I'll have to shift again. And I don't want to!

With these losses in the front on my mind, I sat back down to play on Thursday. I started off losing maybe $500 or so. I had about $3,500 left in my pokerstars account and $1,000 on Absolute when I took my lunch break. That looked like two more bad days or one really bad day. By the end of the day I was back to $4,000 in pokerstars and had $1,100 in AP. $100 isn't anything in the grand scheme, but it was good to not have a losing day.

The next day I broke even, but I had a killer weekend. I felt focused, I played well and I got some decent cards. By Sunday night I was up to $6,300 in pokerstars and $3,500 in AP, which is just about the $10,000 I feel like I need.

The money for November's bills has already been set aside, so I'm looking ahead to December 1st when we'll need to pay rent and December 7th when our credit card will need to be paid (we put all of out bills and do almost all of our spending with one credit card and pay it off all the way every month).

So a few days after being in full on PANIC mode, I once again feel fine and hopeful about the future. All of the rakeback that I've earned on AP in October will be paid in one big chunk on November 15th along with whatever I earn in the AP rake race. That should be something like $3,000 total. I'm about to clear a $1,500 FPP block on poker stars, and I'm 80,000 VPPs away from hitting the 600,000 VPP milestone which means another $6,000 before the end of the year. I had all of those things going for me Thursday afternoon too, but they didn't feel like much of a boon then.

I'm going to put in a few light work days today and tomorrow and then my wife and I are leaving our son with his Nana and Papi and going on a 4 day Mexican Cruise leaving San Diego on Thursday. I am ready for the vacation!

Rakeback Vs. FPPs: Which is better?

Rake is the money that the websites or casinos take out of the pot or out of the tournament prize pool to make a profit. At first glance it doesn't seem overwhelmingly significant, but it's like running into the wind. Over a few steps it doesn't make much difference, but over a few miles you'll be more tired and won't be able to go as far. Hopefully this post will help you get more streamlined.

As I mentioned in a few previous posts I've been shifting away from pokerstars to some degree. Pokerstars is still home and I hope I can make it my exclusive place of play again in the future, and perhaps make Supernova Elite again. But for now the games have been so tough that I've been forced to branch out.

I mentioned rake, but what exactly is rakeback? Well, it's a discount. None of the websites offer this discount directly, but rather through a few third party websites who get a piece of the pie as well for promoting the pokersites and drumming up new business. All of the major websites offer rakeback (except pokerstars) and they all offer about 30% give or take a few percentage points.

That means if you play a $55 tournament with $5 in juice then you'll get back $1.50. If you play 1,000 of those tournaments you'd get back $1,500. It's a little trickier with cash games, but as best I understand it anytime you put money in the pot they say you've contributed to the rake. For example let's say you raise preflop and the small blind folds and the big blind calls. You and the big blind go all the way to the showdown, put in a bunch of money and in the end the site takes $3 out of the pot. Even though two of you put in a lot and one player put in a very small amount it all counts equally. You, the SB and BB have each payed $1 in rake and you personally would get 30 cents back. Everyone else in the hand who got dealt in by didn't put in any money on that hand would get nothing in terms of rakeback.

This money piles up and gets deposited into your account either once a week or once a month.

This is a message for the poker players out there who read this blog; YOU'RE THROWING AWAY INSANE AMOUNTS OF MONEY IF YOU AREN'T GETTING RAKEBACK! Read it again. I mean it. You MUST start playing somewhere where you can get rakeback (with pokerstars being the one exception).

I came across a blog of a fellow poker player who played high stakes SNGs. He had made about $5,000 in the past 8 months in the actual SNG tournament play and $200,000 in rakeback and bonuses!!!

For those of you who want to know how you can get on board, let me tell you how to do that now so you don't get bogged down in the rest of this lengthy post. While I know there are other sites the one I use is rakebacknation.com. I don't know if they are the best, but they've paid me on time, I got a response for support in about an hour when I e-mailed a question, and they have deals with all of the major sites (and a few minor ones too). In short I trust them.

If you want to sign up for rakeback with an existing account, you are probably out of luck (although there is an area to submit an existing account for rakeback consideration). But it's worth it to have your spouse or a friend open a new account and then let you use it. Or you can switch sites. I know how easy it is to get comfortable at one site, but there's no reason to limit your game selection and like I keep saying RAKE BACK IS HUGE! There is a calculator on the site that will show you how much you can get back and it seems accurate to me.

If you want to sign up please do so using the referral code: wes1279. Or by clicking on the link below.

http://www.rakebacknation.com/?affiliate=wes1279

I have no idea what they're going to give me if I sign someone up, but I assume it's not nothing. In fact if you're going to use my magic code (or even if you aren't) please feel free to post any questions you might have in the comments section and I'll help you to the best of my abilities.

I've written a long post already and I haven't even gotten to what the point of this post is supposed to be!

Pokerstars doesn't do rakeback because they have FPPs that are worth something (the other sites have FPPS, or other points for play, but they're not worth nearly as much). But which is better: pokerstars FPP program or rakeback?

Let's start with what it's worth to play on pokerstars. This year I'm going to end up playing about 430,000 hands of $10/$20 and above which is what it takes to generate 600,000 base FPPs. Assuming I did the same next year, as a regular Supernova I'd earn 2,100,000 regular FPPs which would be worth $33,600. I'd also earn $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, and $6,000 milestone bonuses along the way which is a total of $20,000. But each bonus actually costs 50,000 FPPs each (which is kind of a stupid mean trick they play on you) so my FPP total would actually drop by 250,000 to 1,850,000 FPPs which are worth $29,600. So for 430,000 hands of 6 handed $10/$20 I'd get back $49,600.

What could I earn playing 430,000 hands on Absolute poker? There are actually 4 components to the AP bonuses I'd earn. The first is rakeback. I'm not entirely sure about this but my best guess after some limited experimentation is that I'm paying about 28 cents per hand in rake (that includes all hands that I'm being dealt in not just the ones in which I contribute to the pot). So at first glace that looks like 430,000 hands times 28 cents per hand which is $120,400 in rake or $36,120. This is pretty close to what the rakeback calculators tell me I'd make in the amount of time it would take to play that many hands.

But there's actually more to it. The second part of the puzzle is AP's VIP program called FAME. Unlike pokerstars where it took me 365 days of last year to make it to the highest level (Supernova Elite), it took me 2 weeks of playing about half time to make it to the highest level on AP (Diamond Elite).

Playing at the diamond elite level I earn 10 VIP points (I think that's what they're called) every time I play a hand where I put money in the pot which is about half the time. As far as I can tell if I play 100 hands I'll earn something like 450 VIP points. Over the course of 430,000 hands that would be 1,935,000 points which are worth $13,723 (the let you convert points to cash at a rate of 141 points to the dollar). That's actually more significant than I thought! Actually I can only trade in $1,000 a month for cash so I'd have to take $1,723 in merchandise or tournament entries.

But wait! There's more! Rakebacknation runs what they call a "rake race" for their customers. They give out a $4,000 prize pool to the 25 of their customers who pay the most rake on AP each month (there are other rake races for other sites). The player who pays the most rake gets $1,000 with 2nd paying $775, third paying $600 and so on. I don't know much about my long term prospects of winning the rake race, but from what I see right now I like my chances. Last month the winner paid about $8,000 in rake, second place paid $7,000 and third place was in the $4,000 range. My plan above would have me paying $10,000 a month on average. Even not giving it my all I'm in second place for this month and was in first for a while. I expect that I could win the rake race at least half the time and finish in the top 3 or 4 every time. Let's call that $9,000.

Amazingly there is even more! AP also offers frequent reload bonuses. In fact there have been 5 days in the past two weeks where they offered a bonus if you made a deposit that day. For example on the 29th of last month they would match 65% of your deposit up to $150 if you entered a code that was advertised right in the lobby. So I deposited $400 and got $150 in bonus money. This money gets released in $5 increments as you earn points. In practice it takes me about 100 hands to release $5. In total I've deposited $2,260 and gotten $1,350 in bonus money. It's going to take me a total of 27,000 hands to release all of that money, so it's far from instant cash, but it's real money and in the end I'm going to get it.

If these past two weeks were typical (which I doubt a little) then I'll be adding 5 cents a hand to my profits (or a little over 15% more to my rakeback) all year long! That would be another $21,500 over the course of 430,000 hands. I think they can get away with offering so many deposit bonuses because they make it hard to cash out. You can't take any money out within 48 hours of a deposit and they have fees for withdawls (which I think is B.S.)

So in total I'd be looking at $36,120 in rakeback, $13,723 in points and $9,000 in rake race for a total of $58,843. That's pretty close to pokerstars, but if you add in the deposit bonanza it's going to look more like $75,000-$80,000 (depending on the size and frequency of the reload bonuses) in rewards. That is shockingly significant and amounts to getting close to two thirds of my rack back. If I can just win a little from the other players I'll be in great shape.

I won't take you through all the math for two other scenarios, but I'll tell you that the more you play the better pokerstars is in comparison. If you play 7,500 hands of $10/$20 in a year, you'll be a silverstar player and only earn $240 in FPPs, but you would have gotten $630 in rakeback and $240 in VIP points! That is a shocking disparity!


If you play 75,000 hands on pokerstars (just enough to make supernova) you'll make $5,880 in FPPs, but could make $6,300 in rakeback and $2,393 in VIP points on Absolute.

On the other hand if you play 750,000 hands (enough to make Supernova Elite) you'll make $37,200 in FPPs (Or $53,142 if you start the year as SNE) and $59,000 in milestone bonuses and major tournament entries. On AP you'd make $63,000 in rake back and $23,936 in VIP points.

Clearly if you can start the year and SNE and make $112,000 that's the best, but otherwise it's $97,000 vs $87,000 which is closer than I thought. Add on the rake race and it's a dead heat. Add on the deposit bonanza and it actually looks better to play on AP than on pokerstars. Surprising! I was sure supernova elite was the best thing out there. I think I underestimated the value of the VIP points since they seemed pretty worthless as I was earning them and in any initial calculations I made I didn't factor in rake races or reload bonuses! This has turned out to be a fruitful exercise!

The big problem with some of this is that pokerstars has all the games. At peak hours you can find 4 $10/$20 games on AP, but I've never seen more than that. Often times I've been stuck playing either $5/$10 or $15/$30 or 9 handed $10/$20 along with one or two $10/$20 games.

Anyway the worst possible thing you could be doing is playing at full tilt with no rakeback. Those points are pretty much garbage and there are no VIP levels.

My Weekend

My spell check has revolted so sorry for all of the major spelling errors in this post that paint me as a total buffoon!

After a terrible start to the week last week I knew I needed to put in some major effort over the weekend. It's a fact that the games are more beatable on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays. That's when the players who play a few hours a week or a few hours a month are logged on and gambling it up.

Here is a hand from Friday night.

PokerStars Game #33562256651: Hold'em Limit ($10/$20 USD) - 2009/10/02 19:38:33 ET
Table 'Aisakos' 6-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Stane1985 ($1133.50 in chips)
Seat 2: ACESEDAI ($1199 in chips)
Seat 3: al0075 ($683 in chips)
Seat 4: billx ($270 in chips)
Seat 5: sethypooh21 ($400 in chips)
al0075: posts small blind $5
billx: posts big blind $10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ACESEDAI [Td 8d]
sethypooh21: folds
Stane1985: folds
ACESEDAI: raises $10 to $20
al0075: raises $10 to $30
billx: calls $20
ACESEDAI: calls $10
*** FLOP *** [6h 9h Jc]
al0075: bets $10
billx: raises $10 to $20
monk117 has returned
ACESEDAI: raises $10 to $30
al0075: raises $10 to $40
Betting is capped
billx: calls $20
ACESEDAI: calls $10
*** TURN *** [6h 9h Jc] [Qs]
al0075: bets $20
billx: calls $20
ACESEDAI: raises $20 to $40
al0075: raises $20 to $60
billx: calls $40
ACESEDAI: raises $20 to $80
Betting is capped
al0075: calls $20
billx: calls $20
*** RIVER *** [6h 9h Jc Qs] [7s]
al0075: bets $20
billx: calls $20
ACESEDAI: raises $20 to $40
al0075: raises $20 to $60
billx: folds
ACESEDAI: calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
al0075: shows [Jh Js] (three of a kind, Jacks)
ACESEDAI: shows [Td 8d] (a straight, Eight to Queen)
ACESEDAI collected $588 from pot

There are a few things to note about this hand. First of all I three bet the flop with an open ended straight draw with the plan of checking the turn if I missed and betting if I hit it (the old "free card" play). But then my opponent who hit top set on the flop capped it and bet the turn. On the turn I made the second nut straight, but since I pushed the flop my opponents didn't think I had a straight. In fact the guy with the set of jacks probably wasn't thinking at all about what I had, he was just thinking he had a monster hand. and wasn't going to slow down no matter what.

On the turn I capped the betting and the guy with a set fired out into me on the river! This is pure madness. When I get capped on the turn the first thing I put the other player on is the nuts and then I work backward from that. I need a good reason to think I'm not against the nuts to put in any more money than the minimum.

Even more amazing was the fact that he three bet me on the river! I'd put in as much action as possible the entire hand, screaming that I couldn't be beaten and he had the 5th best possible hand on the river (He'd lose to 85, T8, KT or QQ). I thought about capping, but I figured only a fool would reraise me on the river without KT or T8.

Also worth noting is the other guy who tagged along the whole way until the river. What the hell did he have? On a Monday morning this pot would have been half the size it was.

I put in 1,000 hands or so Friday night and lost about $200.

On Saturday I feel like I had some of the worst luck that I've ever had. Big wins and big losses often stem from two things: big pocket pairs and 5 card hands. If you lose with your big pocket pairs or you run into a bunch of big pocket pairs it's hard not to lose. Also if you make very few 5 card hands (straights, flushes and full houses) or run into a bunch of five card hands you're in trouble. I had the perfect storm of missing seemingly all of my draws, having my opponents nail theirs, and getting my pocket aces and kings repeatedly smashed by all kinds of junk.

I also had one guy stomp me worse than I can ever remember. It wasn't that he was so good. In fact it was the exact opposite. He bluffed often and wouldn't fold no matter what when he got involved in a hand with me. But he kept making just enough to beat me.

He was one spot to my left so when he was in the small blind I was in the big blind. The table we were at was fairly tight and so we got into it heads up often. A typical hand would go like this. He would raise K4 from the small blind, I'd reraise with AQ and the flop would come down queen high. He'd check raise the flop with nothing and I'd call. He'd bet the turn, I'd raise, he'd three bet still with nothing and I'd call. On the river he'd hit the king, bet and I'd call.

This kind of thing happened over and over and over. It was maddening! Over the course of 2 hours or so I pumped at least $1,500 into his stack. I think he beat me out of at least 10 if not 15 or 20 consecutive pots where we were heads up on the flop. It was unbelieveable. It wasn't like he was getting AA or KK every time. We usually go into the flop about even or 60/40 one way or the other. If we were playing in person I'd be 95% sure I was being cheated.

Towards the end of the beating this hand came up (note that the table name is nemesis!):

PokerStars Game #33599185337: Hold'em Limit ($10/$20 USD) - 2009/10/03 17:57:06 ET
Table 'Nemesis' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: KID 777 ($357 in chips)
Seat 2: ruwi100 ($399.50 in chips)
Seat 3: ACESEDAI ($563 in chips)
Seat 4: Goldshark ($681 in chips)
Seat 5: fishcentral ($1087 in chips)
Seat 6: Suriek ($307 in chips)
Suriek: posts small blind $5
KID 777: posts big blind $10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ACESEDAI [Ad As]
ruwi100: raises $10 to $20
ACESEDAI: raises $10 to $30
Goldshark: folds
fishcentral: folds
Suriek: folds
KID 777: folds
ruwi100: calls $10
*** FLOP *** [Jd 3s 8s]
ruwi100: checks
ACESEDAI: bets $10
ruwi100: calls $10
*** TURN *** [Jd 3s 8s] [Th]
ruwi100: checks
ACESEDAI: bets $20
ruwi100: calls $20
*** RIVER *** [Jd 3s 8s Th] [Qh]
ruwi100: bets $20
ACESEDAI: calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ruwi100: shows [Kh 9h] (a straight, Nine to King)
ACESEDAI: mucks hand
ruwi100 collected $172 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $175 | Rake $3
Board [Jd 3s 8s Th Qh]
Seat 1: KID 777 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: ruwi100 showed [Kh 9h] and won ($172) with a straight, Nine to King
Seat 3: ACESEDAI mucked [Ad As]
Seat 4: Goldshark folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: fishcentral (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Suriek (small blind) folded before Flop

I just about lost it. Before the flop I was 82% and on the flop I was 95%. A 19 to 1 favorite. I've lost with AA literally thousands of times. I've taken thousands of beats worse than this one. But in this case I was against a guy who had beaten me out of an absurd number of pots in an absurd number of absurd ways. When you get AA in a spot like this all you can do is think "AH HA! I'm going to get this bastard now! I'll grind him into dust on this one! PLEASE try one of the crazy bluffs that you've been running on every freaking hand!" And then I lost. Again. When I was an astounding favorite. Even though the pot wasn't that big it was devestating.

Also notice that my opponent started this hand with $399. I'd directly deposited $1,500 or so into his stack in maybe 90 minutes and he had less than the $500 he started with because he was playing like such a goof that he spewed my chips out to all of the other players like a God damn fire hydrant that had just been hit by a truck!

It was a long day. I won $1,700 or so playing $15/$30, but lost $3,000 playing $10/$20.

On Sunday things turned around. I spent the morning and early afternoon at a brunch party watching football, eating great food, and hanging out with my friends, wife and son. I got home about 3 and put in about 1,000 hands on pokerstars winning $400 or so. I felt lucky to win that much since the games were not good at all for a Sunday.

Since the games were poor I decided to switch gears. As you might recall I opened an account at Absolute poker with the plans of playing on my laptop at night and trying to win enough to pay for a cruise that my wife and I are going on in a few weeks. I'd been doing well in limited action and decided to check out the games. I jumped into four $10/$20 games and picked up what felt like and easy $500 in about 45 minutes.

By that time dinner was close to ready and I logged off. But after dinner I got back on on my laptop. I was amazed and delited by the poor play of my opponents. The were so straightforward! I totally ran them over. It was like they'd never seen someone who would bet the flop and turn without a real hand. "he's betting the turn again! He must have it! 47 hands in a row this guy has bet the turn, but I'm sure he had something every time." I made $1,500 in about 2 hours playing in 3 games.

So all in all I managed to win almost exactly $1,000 over the weekend (not counting $500 or so in FPPs and rakeback) and played a little over 5,000 hands. So I guess you'd have to call that a success.

I've won about $4,000 playing a few hours here and there on my lap top at night. Opperation Pay for Cruise has been a total success and now I'm entering into Opperation Pay for House. I think I'll just bang out about 30 $2,000 days in the next two months and we'll use that money for a house down payment. :)

100 in 100 Challenge

I mentioned in a previous post that I have a goal of playing 100,000 hands of $10/$20 limit hold'em in the last 100 days of the year. The plan is to keep immaculate records and come up with some sort of projection for what I can expect to make in 2010 with a given effort.

So far my projections tell me that I'll be turning to a life of crime by February. I've gotten off to a terrible start! 5,006 hands in I'm losing $3,612 which is -$.72 a hand.

After some time off here and there and after another $1,000 five hour beat down of the players at the Oaks club yesterday, I'm at least feeling neutral if not confident going into he weekend. I'm hoping I can get back on track by trouncing the Friday night gamblers and weekend warriors.

If I can avoid the distractions of real life I should be able to get in 5,000-6,000 hands. Showing a $1,000 profit plus points over that stretch would leave me feeling satisfied and anything much better than that would make me happy.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Bad, Bad and More Bad

I have been getting my ass kicked this week! I lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 over the past 3 days playing a mix of $10/$20 and $15/$30 6-max limit cash games. You'd think after 6 years of playing and having runs like this 50 times It wouldn't bother me anymore. But it does! It sucks!

Everything had been going so well for past few months in the cash games. Sure I had a bad WSOP and a bad WCOOP this year, but they weren't terrible and I could always count on my bread and butter. It felt like my opponents were powerless to stop me. I didn't win every day, but I banged out a bunch of $1,000 and $2,000 days in August and September. The more I played the more I won which, of course, is how it's supposed to work!

In fact things were so steady that I fell into a bit of a trap. I didn't push it when things were going well. I made enough to pay the bills and cover my tournament disappointments, but I didn't top off the reserves. I had WAY to many days where I put in 1,000 hands and called it a day. I took too many breaks that lasted too long. I played in bigger games sometimes that weren't good, because I was bored only making $500 or $1,000 in a few hours! What the hell is wrong with me!?!

Having a good, positive, confident mindset is key to playing poker well and there's no way to fake it. If you're stressed or upset or just feel like you're going to lose, there's no switch to flip or magical tactic that you can use to take yourself back to feeling the way you need to.

So now I'm pissed! Pissed that the games have been super tough these last few days. Pissed that I'm getting bad cards or running into tough situations. And pissed that I'm pissed, because it means I'm not in the right mindset. I'm worried about losing instead of expecting to win.

Today was the last day that I get the benefits of being Supernova Elite. In 3 hours I go back to being regular Supernova. :(

I'm going to take the next day and a half off, spend some time with family and friends and then get back on the horse Friday night. Hopefully when I come back I'll be at least feel neutral instead of negative.

Back to the Oaks Club

I got my start playing poker at the Oaks Card Club in Emeryville, CA. I know now that it's a medium to small poker room (it has about 25 tables), but when I was 21 it seemed enormous and intimidating to say the least.

The games there are a little small for me now, and playing one game at a time is more than a little slow from my perspective. But about every six months my friend Jake and I go in to have a few drinks and have a good time. Yesterday, was one of those days.

The main reason I started going to the Oaks was they were the only place in town that had a $1/$2 hold'em game (at all of the other clubs the smallest game was $3/$6). We're not talking $1/$2 blinds no limit here. This was 2001, two years before Chris Moneymaker and the poker boom, so everything was fixed limit. This was a game where you could get in for $10 and most people had $20-$30 in front of them. It still terrified me because I didn't have any money.

In those days the big game was $15/$30 and it was tough. By the time I'd moved my way up to $3/$6 I knew all of the $15/$30 regulars. They didn't know me, but I watched with envy and awe as they swapped massive piles of yellow $5 chips back on table 18. I thought someday I'd somehow come up with $500 I could afford to lose and take a shot against those guys. Of course I eventually made it into that game, took my lumps at first, but eventually beat it to death for a little while and then moved on.

While I might be a little bored $15/$30 somewhere else, I get a kick out of playing at the Oaks. The place looks exactly the same, the game is played at the same table in the same spot, and while there are plenty of new faces, there are still many of the same employees and players. The difference is instead of standing on the rail in awe, I'm in the game and I'm far and away the best player. It's like going back to high school and all of a sudden being the most popular person or the stud quarterback or the valedictorian.

While a 10 handed $15/$30 doesn't have the pace, risk or stakes of some of the games I play in, it's not chump change. Everyone at the table had between $500 and $1,000 in front of them when I sat down and there was a lot of action. After 5 hours I won $900, 4 snifters of Grand Mariner, 4 beers, one Redbull and Vodka (I was buying drinks for my self and Jake out of my stack), an order of Chicken Satay and a grilled cheese sandwich (I'll call your Bud draft and raise you a grilled cheese!).

Even though Jake didn't do as well I did, we still had a great time and I always enjoy taking the walk down memory lane that I go on whenever I go to the Oaks.

Today it's back to Pokerstars. I'm going to take my stadard shot at a few $215 buy-in tournaments and do my best to beatdown the weekend warriors in the cash games.

Team Pokerstars Pro Online

Sponsorship is the dream of any serious poker pro. When I logged on to Pokerstars today I got a pop up message about "Team Pokerstars Pro Online." I'm guessing everyone who is Supernova Elite got this message.

In the message was a link to a very brief online application. Essentially I had 200 words to make a case for myself. I mentioned my WCOOP, SCOOP, and WSOP cashes and the fact that I've been playing poker for a living since 2003. I spent the other 175 words talking about how I'm really, really, really ridiculously good looking and much taller than average.

In all seriousness what I wish I could convey is that above and beyond my poker playing I would be a perfect person to promote pokerstars! I don't want to disparage my online brethren, but let's just say some of them are perhaps not as personable as I am. If I make it to the next stage and there is any sort of interview process I expect that I will kill compared to other players with equal poker qualifications. Hopefully I'll make it to the next stage.

The message said to not mention the terms of a potential contract publicly, so I'll have to leave you wondering, but I will say that it looks very interesting to me!

My biggest hurdle is going to be the fact that I'm an American man and pokerstars is looking for a diverse group of people from all over the world. My only hope is that they are looking for 100 people or 200 people instead of 10 or 20. I'll keep you posted.

2009 WCOOP Recap and Totals

I'm going to make this brief since I like much more to go into detail about good news rather than bad.

I ended up playing 24 WCOOP events and had 4 cashes: $215 PLO 6 max, $320 8-game, $1,050 limit hold'em and $215 NL Omaha-8. Sadly these cashes were not enough to overcome the 20 bricks. My best finish was 18th of 999 in the 8-game which paid $2,520. The damage or the main tournaments was -$9,085.

I played 15 satellites and while I hit the money is a few, I came up short in the two 50,000 FPP tournaments I played. In the first I was in 1st place with 6 players to go and the top 4 getting $10,300 prizes. I finished 6th. In the second I was even with my two opponents playing 3 handed with the top 2 getting $10,300 prizes. I finished 3rd (at least I got my 50,000 FPPS back in that one!). These were two of the most heartbreaking shortcomings of my career. I lost $758 on satellites.

At the start of the series I planned on playing a slew of second chance tournaments. By the time they rolled around I'd often been playing for 5 or 6 hours and wasn't in the mood to commit to another long tournament. Also most of them had short fields stacked with strong players. In the end I played 3 of the second chance tournaments and lost $955.

One thing I'm taking away from this WCOOP is I'm really down on no limit hold'em tournaments. I'm tired of playing for hours and hours and having one hand decide my fate. Also the level of play at the stakes that are worth while seems to be getting better all the time. I still have an edge, but it's not what it used to be. Maybe I'm not so much down on no limit as up on other games. Along those lines I'm more and more convinced that I need to search out every HORSE or mixed games tournament with decent stakes that I can find.

In the end I lost more than half of my $20,000 starting bankroll and finshed with a net loss of $10,803. BOOOOOOOO! Thanks to all my backers, I'll e-mail you soon.

Now it's back to the cash games! There are 100 days left in 2009. I have 3 week long vacations planned during that time and since I don't have any point pressure I'm sure I'm going to be working less. But my plan is to play 100,000 hands of $10/$20 in 100 days (I'll call it my 100 in 100 Challenge!), keep tight records and see what I think I can expect to make going into 2010.

A standard convention these days is to talk about profit in terms of "big bet's per 100 hands" or BB/100. 1 BB/100 is probably the edge of what's possible at the stakes I'm playing. That would be $100 an hour. Since I'm going to be making $40 an hour (or every 500 hands to be more specific) in FPPs (not counting milestone bonus considerations) even after my supernova elite expires at the end of the month, I don't need to make that much to show a strong profit. I think my goal is to make .5 BB/100 (or ten cents a hand is the way I like to think about it), but I'll be OK with anything over .25 BB/100. I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Two Tough Spots Lead to My Demise

I'm out in 1397th. Not sure if I did the right thing or not on the two hands that did me in. I like the way I played them, but there was certainly more than one way to go.

On the first with blinds of 150/300 I raised to 900 with 88 from early middle position. I got one caller and then the button made it 3,600 to go. This looked like a squeeze play to me. I didn't think calling was as option here. It was either reraise or fold. Since I had the button covered by about 14,000 I thought I was time to make a strong move.

I made it 9,000 to go thinking I'd clear out the caller and my other opponent would fold any hand that wasn't AA, KK, QQ or AK. I even thought there was some non zero chance AK or QQ might go in the muck given the size of this tournament. Instead my opponent moved all in for 15K or so. At this point I was getting the right odds to call no matter what she had putting in 6K to win 24K. I was hoping to see AK, but it was QQ and I was all of a sudden in bad shape.

By the time the next hand came along the blinds were 200/400 and a player 3 off the button made it 1,000 to go. I had AQ and reraised to 3,200. He thought for a minute and went all in. I guess I could have folded the hand and left myself with 9,000 chips, but I was getting almost 2 to 1 on my money so I called. Turns out he had 99, I missed and that was it. You have to win some of those races to do well in a tournament and I came up short the first time I got all my chips in the pot.

Of course I'm unhappy with the result, but I'd always rather go out guns blazing making strong moves, trying to win rather than just trying to survive.

I got my entry to this tournament for hitting supernova elite last year and I sold about half my action so even though this tournament was a big deal and I took it very seriously, it doesn't hurt as much as if I'd shelled out $5K from my pocket. Also I won $1,500 in the cash games today so it's not the end of the world.

I'll wrap up the 2009 WCOOP (including a recap on the 8-game tournament) tomorrow and give all the final numbers. Sorry there wasn't more good news this year. :(

At My Table

At my table right now there are players from New York, L.A., Rio, St. Petersburg Russia, Budapst, and Portugal (two other players from unknow cities and myself). Every now and then I like to take a step back and think about how amazing it is that we're all connected and playing a game in real time from locations all over the world.

M.E. Update

I've been very careful in this tournament so far. First I folded AK before the flop which I almost never do. Under the gun make it 180, got one caller and I made it 780 from the button. UTG quickly made it 2,000 and it just looked like a big pair. In a smaller tournament I would have called, but it was too early in this marathon to get involved with a player who I know has a very big hand.

Second I flopped an ace with AJ and when I bet the flop and got called I checked the turn and the river. I thought it was possible my opponent smooth called my preflop raise with AK or AQ and was waiting to pop me on the turn. After he checked the turn I figured he had a hand that either couldn't call a bet on the river (so why bet?) like a missed draw or had a monster. Also if he had nothing I thought he might bet as a bluff which I could then snap off.

Third, I just called a raise with AJs preflop and when the flop came AQ2 I called my opponent's flop bet and folded to his pot sized turn bet when a K showed up.

I got a little less careful with AQs. I was on the button and the cutoff made it 270 with blinds of 50/100 and a 10 chip ante. I popped him to 800 and he made it 2,070. I could have folded here, but I thought it was a good time to take a flop in position. The flop came down A 8 4 and after a hesitation my opponent bet out 2,680 into the 4,400 pot. This all screamed a hand like KK or JJ, so I made it 6,500 with plans of folding to an all in which would have left me with 9,000. Instead my opponent folded and I took down a nice pot. That one took me from 18K or so to about 23K.

Just gave back a few grand so now I'm at 20,600 after 180 hands and 2.5 hours.

$5,200 WCOOP Main Event Underway!

I skipped out on the $215 tournament that started at ten this morning. I had the realization that I didn't want to play a $200 tournament for four hours before starting a $5,000 tournament that's going to go for 12 hours today!

I'm feeling much better today. I had a great steak last night, drank a nice bottle of Shiraz and slept for 12 hours. I'm going to recap yesterday's action tomorrow.

2,144 players plunked down the five grand to play the main event. We all started with 20,000 chips, blinds of 25/50 and 30 minute levels. And the blinds aren't exactly doubling every 30 minutes either - they go from 25/50 to 30/60 to 40/80 to 50/100 etc. Not sure if I've ever played a tournament where they start you with 400 big blinds (normally it's 50 or 60 and even in other WCOOP tournaments they start you with 200 or so)! This tournament is going to be looooong!

In the first hour we only lost 30 players which is totally unprecedented in my experience for a no limit tournament with 2,000 players.

The prizes are pretty astounding. The edge of the money is 306th which pays $8,040. 126th pays about $15,000. 45th is $25,000 or so. To make $50,000 I need to get to 15th which pays $58,000. Any spot at the final table is worth $100,000. 3rd is where you get to about a million dollar prize and first place pays $1,715,200!!!

After 100 hands or so I have 19,000 chips. I'll try to post frequent updates.

An Interesting Blog Post from a Great Player

Matt Hawrilenko is considered by some people to be the best short handed limit player in the world. I wouldn't argue. If I had to put my money on anyone in a heads up match it would be him. His only problem is no one will play him anymore!

He goes by the name Hoss_TBF at pokerstars and I've often seen him sitting waiting at the $500/$100 table. He won a bracelet in the $5,000 6 max NLH event at this years WSOP and I played with him for a while after we were in the money in the $3,000 HORSE event.

I hadn't heard of him before this year, but in a previous event someone sitting next to me said "there goes the best limit player in the world." When I heard his screen name it made sense.

He seems like a very quiet and shockingly modest guy. When we were coming back from break in the HORSE I introduced myself, shook his hand and said "I heard you are the best limit player in the world." He smiled like I'd said something outrageous and said "I wouldn't go that far, but I've done alright."

Anyway he has a blog. It doesn't look like he posts much, but there is one post that is a transcript of the chat between him, Phil Helmuth, and another player. It's pretty interesting and includes some massive burns.

It's clear from the text that Phil doesn't know shit about playing 3 handed limit hold'em which I found surprising. The stakes aren't mentioned, but I'm almost positive that it was $500/$1000.

Here is the blog http://hoss-tbf.livejournal.com/

If you scroll down to the march 11th post about 40% of the way down you'll see what I'm talking about. Also I heard about this post in cardplayer and can tell you for sure that it's legit.

Out of the 8-game.

The final hand of the 8-game mixed sums up the way my day went. We were playing Razz and I was almost out of chips after getting screwed on what felt like 97 hands in a row. I had about 500 left and the up cards were all 9 or higher except one player who had a 2 up. He completed the bring in to 160. Shaundeeb (who is going to get totally blasted when I write my full recap - he is supposed to be one of the best tournament players online and playing like a total fool - A TOTAL FOOL!) calls with a ten up (this is like calling a raise with 85 in hold'em - maybe worse) and I raise to 320 with 2 5 9. My other opponent makes it 480 and I go all in for my last few chips.

I catch a 9 and then and J. And then a 9 and then a J. We're trying to make the lowest hand possible and I make a God damn full house! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow, but I am livid right now.

If I can make the money in the main event all of today's ridiculousness will be forgotten. Let's hope that happens.

Time for a drink.

The Universe is Torturing Me!

I finished 3rd in the 50,000 FPP HORSE. How the hell do you bubble two tournaments in two weeks where you either get $10,000 or nothing?

We were all about even on the first hand of 3 handed play. We were playing stud hi-lo and my opponent with a ten up brought it in for 800 with QQ in the hole. This guy was a total clown.

I had TT in the hole and a J up and I made it 1,600. He just called! Amazing! I hit a ten on 4th street! The perfect card. He catches a J.

I bet and he calls. On 5th street I don't improve and he caches an 8. Again, bet call. On 6th street he catches a 9 making him the straight. I check call 6th street and the river. After that pot I was down to 13K and he was up to 30K. If I pair or he just misses I'm solidly in first.

A few hands later we go to limit hold'em and I miss everything. I see 4 or 5 flops and don't make a pair. On the final hand I get it all in with AJ vs KQ. KQJ on the flop, ten on the turn (just to make it as painful as possible), king on the river.

This tournament was just so, so sick.

Also I'm in no state of mind to play poker, but I'm in this very important 8 game tournament which is going to take from now until the end of time to complete so I've got to find some way to pull it together.

50,000 FPP HORSE!

It's underway with 24 players. Pokerstars added a $10,300 seat to the prize pool so we're looking at an overlay of $429 per person! That means if you were the average player in this tournament (the 12th best) and you played this tournament 1,000 times you'd expect to be ahead $429,000. An overlay like this almost never comes along.

In other good news if we'd have gotten one more player, the tournament would have paid 3 $10,300 entries with everyone else getting nothing. Instead it pays 2 entries and 3rd through 13th get their 50,000 FPPs back (14th gets 25,000 FPPs). This kind of payout structure is greatly preferable when you're playing a little outside of what your bankroll can support long term.

An hour in we've lost one player and I'm up from 3,000 chips to 4,400 which puts me in 5th. This tournament has 10 minute limits so it's not going to take too long.

In other FPP satellite news I don't have enough FPPs to play the 25,000 FPP satellite to the main event later today. I had enough time to earn them when I saw that tournament on the schedule, but got a little lazy. It starts at 1:40 so there is some chance that I'll finish in the top 14 in this one between now and then and then I'll play.

$1,050 Limit and $215 No Limit Omaha-8 Recaps

I have a new hero. This fellow "unassigned" who won BOTH the $530 and $5,200 SCOOP 6 max limit events simultaneously in the spring also won the $1,050 yesterday. That guy can play!

I got off to a great start in Event #39. We started with 10,000 chips playing 60/120 and I ran off a string of hands in the first half hour that netted me 5,000 chips and put me in the top ten of the 437 players who entered the tournament.

For the next four hours or so I bounced around between 10,000 and 20,000, never fining myself in real trouble, but unable to put a run together. As the field got smaller and smaller and the stakes got bigger and bigger all of a sudden 15,000 wasn't really very much.

I was lucky that my opponents weren't better because they could have done a much better job of applying pressure. Instead, even though I wasn't getting strong cards I was able to steal the blinds a bunch of times to keep my head above water.

The tournament paid 66 spots and when we were down to 100 or so I was in the bottom 5 or 6. It looked like it was going to be a good showing without a pay day.

Then I went on a huge rush. The player to my right had been raising every hand where it was folded to him on the button. When I got dealt A8 of hearts in the small blind it was an easy reraise. I missed the flop but bet anyway and got called. On the turn I picked up a flush draw and bet again. On the river I hit and ace and put all but a a thousand or so of my chips in the pot. I got called, but my ace was good and now I had some chips.

The next hand didn't get to showdown, but I think I won with a bet on the river and it was still a major pot. The very next hand I got dealt AA and thought "this is nuts!" Nobody called my preflop raise with the AA, but I was up to 50,000 chips which was about average and put me in the top 40.

Almost right away I slipped back down to 35,000 and I had to sweat it a little, but I still had enough chips that they only way I wasn't going to make the money was if I got a few strong hands and lost.

We crossed into the money about 6 hours after the start of the tournament. I'd played over 600 hands in that time which if you were going to play in person would take about 17 hours. So even though this was a one day tournament it had more play than a 3 day WSOP event.

I lost a fair sized pot or two right away and found myself back at 15,000 chips or so which was now a very small stack. Then I got QQ in the small blind and raised. My opponent 3 bet and I capped it. The flop came down K J 2 and the turn was an ace. By that time all my money was in and I thought I was done. Then my opponent turned over Q9! I thought "Ah ha! I'm back in it! Wait a second, the river is a ten and we split the pot. AHHHHHHHHH! How the hell do I split with QQ vs Q9! AHHHHHH!"

A few hands later I was out in 58th which paid $1,700+. All in all a good finish, but not a great one.

Now on to Event #40. I decided to play the no limit Omaha hi lo split on a whim. I'd had a good day in the cash games and figured what the hell. We started with 1,285 players and by the time we were down to 900 I was in 1st place!

I'd never played NL Omaha-8 before, but I'd played a fair amount of limit Omaha-8 and pot limit Omaha hi and I felt like I could put the two together. I am shocked (SHOCKED!) at how many players in these Omaha tournaments just have no clue how to evaluate a starting hand. I see people all the time getting their whole stack in with hands that are the hold'em equivalent of Q9 or K7. They just don't get it at all.

Of course I caught some nice breaks to build up my stack. I kept getting moster hands like AAK2 or A23J double suited. People were giving me action and when I had the best hand going in it held up.

I found myself with almost 30,000 chips when average was less than 7,000. I pretty much stayed in that range until we were close to the money. I took it up to 40,000, then lost 17,000 in one pot when I got it all in with A24J vs AA39 (or something like that). On that hand the blinds were 400/800 and I raised to 2,400. My opponent instantly moved all in for 17,000 which was a massive overbet and told me that he had AA in his hand for sure.

This is where my inexperience came into play. I wasn't sure if I should call. I was risking about 15,000 to pick up 21,000 or so. I knew he had AAxx, but wasn't really sure how my hand stood up to a hand like that. At the time I decided it was worth a call since I had such a powerful low hand. After doing some research looking at how my hand stacks up to AA with a few other combinations it looks like I'm in terrible shape if my opponent can make a low (even if it's not a good low) and a little behind if he has a hand like AA9T that can't make a low. Putting it all together it was a bad call.

I'm sure I made more mistakes along the way, but many of my opponents were truly clueless. Some poker players who are in the OK to good range in terms of their poker skill level go on and on about how their opponents stink. Not me. I tend to give my opponents more credit than they probably deserve. I assume that everyone knows how to play until I get concrete evidence to the contrary. With that said, some of these guys really sucked!

In the end I finished 143rd which paid $379. Not a huge deal, but good for momentum! It also means I have 4 WCOOP cashes this year so now I don't feel like such a loser!

Today's WCOOP Tournaments

At 11:40 today I have the 50,000 FPP (about $800) HORSE satellite and then at 1:30 I have the $2,100 8-game mixed. The $530 8-game mixed 2nd chance is at 4:30 and I'd say there is a 60% chance that I'll play it. The 2nd chance limit yesterday was loaded with tough players and I'm going to have a look at the field before I commit.

Yesterday's recap will be up shortly.

Event #39 Recap

I finished 58th in the $1,050 6 max limit which paid $1,748. A full recap is coming tomorrow. Still in the Omaha. We're down to 306 players and I'm in 60th with 28,000 chips. 180 spots pay and 1st place is $42,323.

NL Omaha

I guess I'm OK at NL Omaha. I'm in 1st of 909 players! We started with 1,285 players and 5K chips and I have 28K chips after 80 hands. Long way to go still, but the best possible start.

Hanging on in the big one. 94 players left. Average is 47K and i have 21K which puts me in 78th.

Down to 1,000 in the 2nd chance.

Lots of WCOOP action!

Right now I'm in 4 WCOOP tournaments.

First, I'm in a $55 with rebuys turbo satellite to tomorrows $2,100 8-game mixed. They guaranteed 5 seats and there's no way they are going to get $10,500 into this prize pool with the 45 players who are playing.

Second, I'm in the $530 6 max limit second chance. Tough field in that one. Only 38 players with 6 spots paying. 1st $7,030 and 6th $1,045.

Third, I decided to play Event #40 $215 no limit Omaha hi lo. It's kid of goofy playing a split pot game no limit, but I thought I'd give it a shot. It is Friday night and I'm sure a lot of less qualified players are also going for it in this one. Unfortunately I'm down to 3K from 5K after getting quartered in a big pot.

Lastly, of course I'm still in the $1,050 limit. Holding steady with 18K and in 114th of 194.

The Edge of Possibility

I've had two runs in the past two days that have been on the edge of what is possible at the stakes I'm playing.

Yesterday I lost $3,000 in 1,000 hands playing no higher than $10/$20. Things have been going well lately so I'm all but sure I didn't tilt. I just couldn't connect with a flop! And when I did I'd hit it so hard no one could call (If the flop is A 7 3 and you have AA, there aren't to many hands that are going to give you action). Of course I took some bad beats too, but mostly is was just missing flop after flop, and my opponents calling me down with worse and worse hands (not easy to bluff when you keep showing bluffs!). I don't think 1,500,000 hands of limit hold'em I've ever lost 150 big bets in 1,000 hands.

I would bet that I could see 100% of flops regardless of action and not lose $3,000 in 1,000 hands.

Today the dead opposite! $2,300 to the good in 300 hands! I won 29 of 35 hands at showdown (compared to about 35% yesterday). 115 big bets in 45 minutes is unprecedented in my poker career. I just couldn't miss.

I might not see a run like either of these anytime in the next few years and they happened on back to back days!

Still right around 17K in the limit. I might play the $215 No limit Omaha-8 at 5:00.

Update

2 hours in we're down to 410 players. I was up to 15K then down to 8K and now Back up to 16k and in 57th. Some of these guys are hyper aggressive, but it's nothing I haven't seen 100 times before and certainly not going to give me problems.

1st place pays $83,000 and the edge of the money is 66th which pays $1,530.

$10,000 Make it or Break it Weekend!

I have roughly $10,000 in WCOOP tournaments in the next 3 days. Kind of scary when I think about it.

Today I have $1,050 6 handed limit hold'em which is underway. Looks like we'll have 400-450 entrants when late registration is over. The good news is I don't recognize anyone at my table. We started this one with 10,000 chips and stakes of 60/120.

Later today I have the $530 second chance 6 max limit tournament. Not sure how many entrants to expect in that one. Maybe 50?

I'll do my best to at least post some updates on twitter.

I am ready for some good luck!

A New Project

Brick city in the WCOOP today and nothing on the schedule for tomorrow.

I have been steadily kicking ass in the $10/$20 cash games though. On Friday I lost about $2,000 in $15/$30 and then my opponent in a $30/$60 heads up match was better than I thought and got an insane run of cards. In total I lost something like $5,000. But I got it all back plus and extra few hundred (plus FPPS) over the next 3 days. Then today I put another $1,200 win on the books.

I have a new poker project. My wife and I are going on a cruise next month and between the cost of the cruise, airfare to the L.A. area (we're going to leave our son with my wife's parents for a few nights) and whatever money we spend on the boat we're going to need $1,500-$2,000. My wife is very frugal by nature, and while I'm not a total spendthrift I can sometimes lose track of the value of a dollar (I'm actually much better than most pro poker players).

We were debating the various cost and benefits of certain options for our vacation and I wanted to go the more expensive route and she wanted to make things as difficult as possible logistically (you know like flying at 3 in the morning with a 48 hour layover and levaing on the cruise 147 days afer we get to LA) in order to save a few bucks. Eventually I got fed up and said "honey, don't worry about it. I'll put in some special hours on the lap top in front of the TV and get win enough to cover the cost of all this shit." So I got my way, but now I have to put my money where my mouth is!

I deposited $1,000 into absolute poker and my challenge is to turn it into $3,000 by October 20th. I'm going to treat this playing like a normal person might. Play a little here and there after work and play whatever seems fun at the time. I have a deal where I'm getting 31% of my rake back and they have some sort of other rewards programs on top of that. I've been wanting to explore the benefits as well as the level of play in their games so this seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Today I played about 100 hands of $5/$10 and won $121. So far so good on the Absolute Poker Challenge.

The Future of This Blog

More and more I've been getting comments from people I've never met who say they enjoy reading my blog. I also keep finding out that old friends and acquaintances have been reading. These people aren't all extremely poker savvy or aren't so much interested in the pluses and minuses of my daily results, but rather the experiences an emotions of playing poker for a living. So I'm going to make an effort to be a little less results based and a little more colorful in my posts. Not sure if I'll stick to it, but that's my intention.

Now completely contrary to the spirit if this post let me say WCOOP event #34 ($215 NLH with big antes) is underway! 3,650 players to start and an hour in we're down to 3,000 or so. I'm up from 5K all the way to 5,200! Look out! 1st place $114,610.

Now in the spirit of this post let me say I got drunk as a skunk last night and don't really feel like playing today! We had a dinner party for about 10 people and I over did it. One of the biggest benefits of this job is being able to do stuff like stay up until 2 in the morning boozing it up and then be able to sleep in the next day. After 6 years of that kind of freedom I'm not sure I could ever handle a 9 to 5 job.

Anyway, I'm a little foggy this afternoon, but the show must go on! Results (hopefully good ones!) later.

The Damage and What's Left in the WCOOP

So far I've played 18 WCOOP events with 2 cashes and a net loss of $2,433. Pretty terrible!

I've also played 14 satellites and 2 second chance tournaments with a total net loss of $1,188. Not great.

If I'd been able to convert that 50,000 FPP satellite into the $10,300 prize that was all but in my grasp I'd obviously be in fine shape over all. That was the real disappointment of the 2009 WCOOP so far.

So what's left? Tomorrow at 11:30 I have $215 no limit hold'em with big antes. In that one they start the antes from level 1 and they are 20% of the big blind. It changes the dynamic a little bit to have so much dead money in the pot.

Friday at 1:30 I have the $1,050 6 handed limit tournament. This is my specialty. I play 6 handed limit more than any other game by a wide margin. I can't say why I haven't had more success in the handful of 6 max limit tournaments I've played in the past, but I have high hopes.

Saturday at 1:30 I have $2,100 8-game mixed. My best result by far in this years WCOOP was playing 8-game mixed. I thrive in the mixed games format. I've made the money in 3 of the 6 either HORSE or 8-game mixed tournaments I've played with buy ins over $1,000, never finished out of the top 30%, and had a 2nd out of 32 and a 4th out of 444.

Sunday at 10:00 am $215 NL hold'em.

The last tournament is the $5,200 main event. I got an entry to this tournament for making it to Supernova Elite in 2008, but would have played it anyway even if I didn't have a ticket. They are guaranteeing a $10,000,000 prize pool which will be the biggest in online history and that means a $2,000,000+ first place prize. There is no reason why I can't win this tournament. Sure it would take some strong play and a lot of luck, but it could happen.

Also as a late addition there are a few more FPP buy in satellites with added value in which I'm going to include my backers in the action (if I play other value added FPP satellites not listed below I have all of my own action). There is a pretty simple way to figure out what FPPs are worth. You can buy a $215 tournament entry for 13,500 FPPs so that means 62.8 FPPs are worth $1.

The tournaments I'm going to play are 50,000 FPP satellite to the $10,300 HORSE (Saturday 11:40) where pokerstars is adding one $10,300 seat to the prize pool, and 25,000 FPP buy in to the $5,200 main event (Saturday 1:40) with five $5,200 seats added. The thing about these tournaments that makes them so valuable is they don't attract that many players. There are only so many people that have 75,000 FPPs to use on these. The players that have a lot of FPPs are cash game players who tend not to play tournaments and the tournament players don't have very many FPPs. We'll see but I expect about 25 players or less in the HORSE and maybe 100 in the NLH.

Let's hope I've saved all my luck for the big ones!

What a Terrible WCOOP!

I'm out of the other tournament as well. I was up to 12K or so and got it in on the flop with top pair and a flush draw vs bare aces in the PLO and missed.

Bad so far, but a cash in the main event or even a semi deep finish in the other two $1,000+ events could turn things around.

WCOOP Events #29 and #30 Underway!

Down to 3,500 from 5K in event #29 ($320 half pot limit hold'em hald PLO) and while writing this post I lost a 13K pot and went broke in the other one ($320 NLH) with a set (got it all in vs a flush draw on the turn and he hit). ACK!

No WCOOP Today

I had two tournaments on my schedule today and both were no limit hold'em. The first started at 10 am and I slept through it and the second one has a $1,050 buy in.

The problem is I haven't been feeling well these last two days and it's totally screwed up my sleep schedule. I woke up yesterday about 6 am (4 hours earlier than normal) and for some reason couldn't get back to sleep. I was awake for almost 24 hours before falling asleep around 5 am this morning. And I just woke up at 2 in the afternoon.

So I don't feel very sharp and I'm not really in the mood for a $1,000 NLH tournament where it's going to take 6 or 7 hours to just make the money and 20+ hours to go all the way through. Playing a big tournament in person it's not so tough to handle playing all day. You're getting about 35 hands an hour and there are 20 minute breaks every 2 hours with a 60 or 90 minute dinner break. Online it's 100+ hands an hour, a break of 5 minutes every hour and 15 minute dinner break. Plus I can't just sit here any play one game because it would make me totally insane.

So that's the story. Tomorrow $320 half hold'em, half PLO, and $320 NL hold'em 2X chance (all that means is if you go totally broke in the first hour you can rebuy one time).

Things don't get really serious until next weekend. Friday is $1,050 6 handed limit hold'em, Saturday is $2,100 8-game mixed, and Sunday is the $5,200 main event. There's no backing out of any of these because first of all I wouldn't want to and second of all I have tickets for the second two that aren't good for anything else but these tournaments.

Back to Plan A

I woke up early today, spent a few hours playing with my son and then a few more reading in bed. I feel 90% recovered from yesterday and I really can't pass up a $320 HORSE tournament with 800+ players on a Saturday.

I'm also going to play the $215 HORSE second chance as well as the $215 heads up matches second chance.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Update

Today was one of the ten worst days of my poker career. I got totally decimated in the cash games, bricked in the $215 with rebuys and am pretty much dead in the Omaha. Not in the mood for a full update right now. In fact I might take tomorrow off to get myself back in the right mindset.

WCOOP Event #21 underway!

After doing the rebuy and add on, you get 17,500 chips to start in this tournament an hour and a half in the blinds are 50/100. I'll be collecting social security before we make the money in this one. 2,780 players shooting for the $220,000 first place prize!

Friday WCOOP

This is going to be my biggest day yet in the 2009 WCOOP in terms of buy ins. I'm going to play the $215 with rebuys (which should mean $615 investment) event #21 and the $109 with rebuys (which should be $309, $409 or $509 investment) second chance.

Even though it wasn't on my schedule I'm going to play event #21 $530 limit Omaha hi-lo. The more WCOOP events I play the more I realize people are getting out of their comfort zone. Other people are going to play this event who have very little experience with Omaha. This is maybe my 5th or 6th best game when it comes to tournaments, but I'm all but positive I'll still have an edge, I'm coming off a decent win, and I didn't put together a $20,000 bankroll so I could pussy out on a $500 tournament!

Lastly I'll be playing the $320 NL hold'em with 10 minute levels (typical $320 buy in WCOOP events have 30 minute levels). This one isn't going to last until the break of dawn, but they are still starting us with 5,000 chips and 10/20 blinds so it's not going to be too fast.

Let's hope I take one of these to the house!

Go Matt!

My friend Matt is playing WCOOP event #20, $320 2-7 triple draw today. His name is skillet if you want to look him up and root for someone if you're a WCOOPaholic. I have 20% of his action so I'm hoping he goes deep. 4 hours in he has 7K, avg is 8K and they are down to 280 of 470.

Good luck Matt! If you blow this I'm going to kick you in the nuts!

WCOOP Event #18 ($320 8-game mixed) Recap

For those of you following my twitter updates you already know the results, but let me fill in the details. As a reminder we were playing a mix of 8 different games with the game changing every 10 minutes and 6 players at a table.

We started with 5,000 chips and 999 players. Like I mentioned in my last post I almost went down the tubes early. At one point I made a bet on the turn in limit Omaha with a shaky hand and my opponent could have put me all in with a raise. Instead he folded and I had about 2,000 chips.

I slowly built those chips up to 18,000 and then I had a hand that changed the course of the tournament for me. We were playing NL hold'em with blinds of 150/300 and I got dealt QQ on the button. A player raised to 900 in front of me and I thought about reraising. Instead I opted to call and try to trap my opponent. Normally I'm not in favor of smooth calling with QQ like this. In fact I'd argue it's a bad play in most circumstances, but for some reason I just called.

Everyone else folded and the flop came down ten high. As I expected my opponent bet out something like 1,500 and I raised him to 4,500. Without hesitation he moved all in and he had me covered.

Yikes! I'd spent all this time grinding out a nice stack in these limit games and all of a sudden I was facing a decision for all of my chips (I had about 12,000 left behind). You can't make it in poker if you play like a pussy, so I called and my opponent turned over AK. It was actually a strong play on his part, but in this case he fell into my trap and I was up over 35K.

The average stack around this time was around 20K so I was in very good shape.

A few hands later I was faced with some tough decisions in the pot limit Omaha. I got dealt AA97 and came in for a raise. In PLO if you have AA in your hand you're ahead of any hand that doesn't have AA in it (with a few very specific exceptions).

One player behind me called my raise and the flop came down J 8 2. Normally I'd bet the pot here, but for some reason I checked. I was in such good shape, we were down to about 250 players (144 spots paid), my opponent had me covered and I just didn't want to play a big pot out of position. It turns out if I'd bet right there I would have won the pot. Instead my opponent checked and the turn came down a ten.

Now I had the second nut straight. Only a hand with Q9 could beat me. I bet the pot and my opponent just called. The river paired the 2 which meant in addition to Q9 there were a ton of full houses that could beat me too. I checked any my opponent fired out a pot sized bet of 10,000 or so. This was either a bluff or a full house and I thought a bluff was more likely. I decided to call and he showed me AQTT for a full house. Oops! After that hand I was in 93rd of 249.

But I made a comeback in the next round which was triple draw. The goal in triple draw is to make the lowest hand possible, aces are high, and straights and flushes count against you - the best possible hand is 2 3 4 5 7. The blinds were 400/800, a player in early position raised to 1,600, got called, and I called in the big blind with 2 3 8 K K planning to throw away my two kings.

On the first draw I got a 6 and an ace. To my delight the initial raiser drew 3 cards! It is nothing short of a terrible play to come in raising from early position and draw 3 cards. The other player took 2 and feeling like I might be in OK shape I bet out. The 3 card draw raised and the other player called.

On the next draw I chucked my ace and caught a 5. Now I had a strong made hand. Both other players took one card and then the action was back on me. I bet and the 3 card draw raised me again and again got called by the other player. I wasn't going anywhere, but I couldn't reraise.

I stood pat and to my delight they both drew again. This time when I bet they both folded, but by that time the pot was over 20,000 so I was happy to have it!

When we made the money I was in 39th place of 144.

I was really up and down, up and down after that. I was up to 50K then down to 25K. Then, way way up all the way to over 130K. I got there by winning 3 pots in a row and 5 of 10 overall in the limit hold'em. I got good cards connected and made he max on all of them. That put me in 3rd place of 82.

I was steady for a while as other players dropped. With 47 players left I was in 7th place and at some point I was in 2nd overall.

Then I started the slow drain. I was down to 100K and then 70K and then down to 45K with a third of average. I slipped all the way down to 10K and was in last place with 30 players left.

We were playing razz and I doubled up once. Then I doubled up again. We were playing 8,000/16,000 so the 45K in my stack wasn't exactly enough to work with, but it was almost 5 times what I had 3 minutes before so it looked OK to me!

The I got dealt A 5 2 and was up against A 6 2. He caught a K, 4, 6 and an 8 making him an 8 low and I caught an 7, A 4, and an 8 making me a 7 low. I just bet, bet, bet until all the money was in on 6th street and was happy I made the best hand.

Now I had 100K and was in business. I cruised through the first 10 hands or so of the 7-card stud maintaining my stack. Then I went on an insane rush.

In the biggest pot of the whole tournament for me I started with JJ in the hole and a king up. I raised the bring in to 8,000 and the player to my left (who I know from the cash games is a very good 8-game mixed player) raised me to 16,000 with a queen showing. I just called.

In 4th street he caught and ace and as I called out loud for a jack, that is exactly what I got! Little did I know that my opponent had started with A K Q and just made a pair of aces! I just called his bet on 4th street waiting to pop him on 5th street.

Which is just what I did when he bet out again. He bet 16K I made it 32K, he went to 48K and I went all in for 56K. All he had was that pair of aces and even though he made two pair on the end, I took down the 172K pot!

They were all small, but I won the NEXT FOUR pots! Now I was up to 240K and in 8th of 22! Not bad given I'd just been at 10K not long before.

What followed was nothing short of a major collapse. I didn't do anything wrong per se, but I went down the tubes. You don't want to hear about that do you?

I finished 18th which paid $2,520. Obviously my best result of this years WCOOP and while not a final table or an insane payday, still very satisfying.

I was thinking this would get me about even for the WCOOP, but I was wrong! I'm actually still losing $1,193 for the series - $328 in the main events, $215 in second chance tournaments, and $650 in satellites. Not quite even, but better than I was doing before!

No tournaments today. Tomorrow a pair of NL hold'em tournaments - $215 with rebuys, and $320 semi turbo!

Back from the Dead in the 8-game

I was down to 1,500 chips and at one point had all but my last few hundred chips in the pot.

The turnung point that led to these difficulties happened in the limit hold'em. I came in for a raise with QJ and got 3 bet. I called and the flop came down jack high. I check called with the plan of check raising the turn. Which is exactly what I did after a brick came. My opponent 3 bet me which I thought meant I was in big trouble. I almost folded. The river was an ace which was clearly a terrible card for me. But the pot was so big that I check called. My opponent turned up AT! ACK! He three bet me with nothing but ace high on the turn, was a 14 to 1 underdog and hit! If I'd won that pot I would have had an average stack of a little over 6,000. Instead I had 3,000.

But after going to the basement I am now back in the penthouse. When I started this post I had 12,000 chips at least half of which came from scooping 3 pots in the stud-8. Then I picked up 3,000+ when someone moved all in on my AK suited with QJ. And I just picked up another 3,000 after getting a free look in the big blind and snapping off a bluff with 3rd pair.

That means I have 18,000 and I'm in 29th of 582. A long way to go, but things are going well.