Taking on Backers for Project Flying Panther

The first time I took on backers in a big way was when I went to the 2006 WSOP. I played 10 events, including the main event, and had my ass handed to me cashing only once. I gave plenty of disclaimers, but still felt a little guilty since all of my backers were friends and family. Other times I've won people thousands of dollars. In those instances I was generally happy to win money for other people, but still sometimes felt a little regretful that I didn't have all my own action.

It sounds like a lose/lose awful clusterfuck! But in some instances there is a strong rationale for selling some of your action and it doesn't have to be because you're broke (although that is probably the main reason most people take on backers).

I've decided to take on some backers and put together a $10,000 bankroll to play some bigger cash games and here is the rationale I gave them (In a bitchin' power point presentation!):

• Effective rake reduction – For example playing at $6/$12, $4 comes out of every pot, plus a $1 dealer tip. If I play $15/$30 with 40% of my own action, I take the same personal risk, but pay $1.60 per pot in rake and tip $0.40. If I win four pots per hour this is a $12 per hour savings.
• Game evaluation – I’d like to do some analysis on to what degree the larger games are beatable, without subjecting my bankroll to major swings
• Fun – It’s more fun to play higher stakes against tougher opponents.
• Progress – I never plan to play poker full time again, but that doesn’t mean I want to grind it out at $6/$12 either. I want to make progress in the time I use.

You can only take the first bullet so far because as you move up you also encounter tougher opponents, but the power of the rake is not something to be taken lightly and I think it is generally underestimated by most players. I would also add, build good will for future backing opportunities. I'd love to go play every event at the WSOP as $500 tournaments and sell off the rest.

So what is Project Flying Panther? Basically it's me using $10,000 to play limit cash games in the $15/$30-$40/$80 range and NL Cash games in the $2/$4-$5-$10 range over the course of 3 months. Session 1 will be this Friday night and since I'm obligated to my backers to keep them posted, a recap of every session will appear on this blog.

How did I come up with the name Project Flying Panther? I used this project name generator - http://online-generator.com/name-generator/project-name-generator.php and it was the first name that got spit out. But now I love it! Project Flying Panther bitches!

The Road to the 2014 WSOP Starts Now

I have 6 WSOP Cashes after playing in about 35 events. From 2005-2010 I played at least 3 events every year. But, as I transitioned out of playing poker 50 hours a week and in to a 9-5 job all of a sudden playing at the WSOP was not an option.

For 7 years had a bankroll that was usually in the $25,000-$50,000 range and now it was literally zero. I wasn't broke, I still had money. But for all of 2011 and the first half of 2012 even playing a $150 tournament meant going to the bank and taking money out of the checking account. Playing a $1,000 tournament went from a calculated investment to seemingly the same as spending $1,000 to take a cruise or buy a new TV. I moved on from my dreams of winning a WSOP bracelet.

But, after all that time off I've been playing again and I'm starting to feel that fire again. Two 4 hour sessions a week is all I can manage with a standard job and 2 kids, but my results have been steady and strong.

Mentally I have totally reset. A $200 win feels like how a $2,000 win used to feel. I can play small games without being bored. But I still have the skill I accumulated over 7 years as a full time pro and I am pounding the shit out of the amateurs I'm playing. $500 has bloomed in to $7,000 over the past 9 months playing small stakes limit and no limit cash games a few hours a week.

It's been nice to win some walking around money and be able to take care of some minor expenses, but I want and am capable of more.

I've been following the early stages of this years WSOP with great interest and massive envy. People that I know are there. Guys I used to play against on daily basis are now well know names. Friends ask me if I'm going this year and I have to tell them no.

But next year I'm going to be back and I'm going to do it right.

8 hours a week, gives me just over 400 hours to prepare. Right now my bankroll is about $3,000. My goal is to have it up to $10,000 by June 2014 so I can have enough to play 3 $1,500 events plus spend $500 on expenses (that's probably a little lite) and only have it suck up half of my bankroll.

Along the way, I'll need to spend enough time in the cash games to earn and enough time in tournaments that my game is sharp. After playing over 2,000,000 hands of poker some tactics are burned in my brain forever, but anyone who competes at anything can get better with practice. Unfortunately I can't blast out 20 multi-table tournaments in a Sunday like I could when Pokerstars was up and running in the US. But I can play the local $100-$300 tournaments. I'd like to play 25 of those over the next year in preparation.

I have another milestone in my line of sight - the WSOP Circuit event in Lake Tahoe October 24th-November 4th. I'm hoping to make it up there for at least one weekend to try to win a WSOP Ring in the more modest $300-$500 events.

I have to admit that working on a year long plan is going to create some added pressure if all goes according to play and I end up back at The Rio in 2014, rubbing elbows with the world best poker players. So I'm going to add, make it fun, and make it as stress free as possible to my goals. I also want to be in the best shape of my adult life coming in those tournaments so I can be as sharp as possible. I weigh 25 pounds less than I did in 2010 so I'm on my way, but can still make more headway.

To recap here are my goals:

-$10,000 bankroll by June 2014
- 400 hours of play by June 2014
- 25 local tournaments played by June 2014
- Play in a Lake Tahoe WSOP Circuit Event
- Continue to improve my physical fitness
- Make it fun

And lastly, blog about it. It's great to have this record of my past poker adventures and I'd like to get back in the habit.

Open Faced Chinese Poker Strategy - 10 Tips

If you do a search for "open faced chinese poker payouts" you'll find my last post is the third hit on Google (it was second for a while). I consider it no small feat to show up on the first page of Google so I figured I'd shoot out another, more complete post about OFCP now that I've had a chance to play it a few times.

The Rules and Payouts

Here is a brief recap of how to play from cardplayer.com

Like regular Chinese (high), Open-Face Chinese is structured into three hands of descending value, 1. A five-card hand in the back (the strongest) 2. A five-card hand in the middle and 3. A three-card hand “up top.” If your middle is stronger than your back hand or your top is stronger than your middle, you “foul.” Open-Face Chinese can be played with two to four players and begins with five cards dealt to each player. The player left of the button places the five cards anywhere in the back, middle and top (not to be moved at any other point in the hand). Afterwards, each player is dealt one card at a time, starting from the left of the button, until 13 cards are dealt to each player. The goal is to make the strongest possible hand, accumulate as many royalties as possible without fouling.

The widespread royalty system gives 20 points in the back for a royal flush, 10 points for a straight flush, eight for quads, six for a full boat, four for a flush, and two for a straight. If any of those hands are achieved in the middle, the royalties are doubled. On top, you get one point in royalty for every pair over sixes up to nine points for aces.

The way we play you also get 10 for trip deuces up front adding one unit for each rank on up to 22 for trip aces.


Left out of this description are a couple of important points. First of all, you compare your front hand, middle hand and back hand to that of each of your opponents and if you beat an opponent in 2 of 3 spots you win 1 unit. If you win all 3 or the other person has a foul hand and you have a legit hand you win 6 units. Why 1 and 6 and not 2 and 4 or 1 and 2? It turns out there needs to be a strong disincentive you fouling.

Secondly, the player to the left of the button sets his (or her) 5 cards and exposes them, before the next player sets his cards and so on. This is important because as you see more cards exposed it gets easier and easier to decide which way to set your initial hand.

The third key point is the player to the left of the button resolves payment with the other players first and then the second player and so on. This is important because if the first player has a foul hand he pays everyone and then his hand is mucked. Imagine that all 4 players have a foul hand. The first player pays players 2, 3, and 4 while the second player would only pay players 3 and 4, and player 3 would only pay player 4. Player 4 pays no one and collects 18 units.

10 Strategy Tips!

So far the only strategy I've seen in print is "avoid fouling your hand." This game is very complex and I'm sure you could write a whole book about it, but here are a few tips that go beyond, don't foul.

#1 - Throw that basic advice out the window! You have to take some risks. If you're too afraid of fouling your hand, you'll never collect on the big payouts. As in many other forms of poker, in the long run playing it safe is not safe at all.

#2 - When you're in first position focus more on making a legit hand, and take more risks when you're in later position. If you foul in early position you have to pay everyone at least 6 units. In later position you'll collect from other players with foul hands in front of you even if you foul. Don't take this idea too far - you still have to go for it in early position if the situation warrants it, but if you have a decision to make, keep this in mind.

#3 - Rarely start with a pair up top even if it's one that pays. For smaller pairs the payouts are worth the risks and for larger pairs, it's just too hard to put together a fair hand when you start with a pair up top.

#4 - Straights underpay. It's usually not worth risking a foul hand to go for a straight in the back. Of course if you end up with 4 big cards to a straight, you want to get them in back, but don't risk paying everyone else 6 in an effort to collect a 2 unit royalty.

#5 - Even though you don't want to start with pairs up front, you're best chance of collecting a royalty over 6 is with a big pair up front. Don't be a pussy!

#6 - Realize that if you're playing four handed and.there is only 1 card left in the deck that makes your hand, you have a 25% chance of getting it (assuming all players have been dealt and even number of cards to that point). Someone has to get it right? It doesn't feel right to look at a stack of 32 cards with only one in there that helps you and think you're going to make your hand 1/4 of the time, but that's how it works.

#7 - The other math is more complicated. Let's say there are 3 cards left out of 12 that make your hand. What are the chances of hitting (playing 4 handed)? You'll get three of those cards. On the first card you have a 3/12 chance of hitting. On the second card you're chances are (3/11)*(1-3/12) and on the third card you're chances are (3/10)* (1-((3/11)*(1-3/12)+ 3/12)). Kind of a mess right? Add those three chances up and you get 61.8%. The point here is that the math is not super simple and it's not like hold'em where you can memorize a 8 or 10 sets of odds and have a mostly complete picture of the math. Maybe I'll do more math in a later post!

#8 - Be aware of situations where you can make a fair hand and still get scooped by everyone. There's no reason to focus on making a fair hand if you're just going to lose to everyone else anyway. Sometimes you have to do things that are very risky in order to give yourself any chance at all.

#9 - Be aware of situations where it looks like multiple other players are on the way to fouling. In these spots cancel your plans to go for the royalties and make a hand that is fair.

#10 - You're front hand is the garbage depot. If you're unsure how to set your first 5 cards, lean towards none up front or your lowest card up front.

Bonus! Take your time and be aware of the cards that are out before you make any decisions.

Comments

If you agree or disagree with any of these concepts, sound off in the comments. Some discussion will help us all improve!

Open Faced Chinese Poker

I've recently heard about a new game - Open Faced Chinese Poker - that sounds awesome. In regular Chinese Poker each player gets 13 cards and you split them into a 5 card back hand, 5 card middle hand and a 3 card front hand with the back needing to have a higher poker rank than the middle and the middle needing to have a higher value than the front. Win 2 of 3 for a win and 3 of 3 for a scoop which pays double.

My friends and I used to play this game as a way to kill time, but many of the big name poker pros have been known to play for big stakes. Another wrinkle is royalties. With royalties a player collects for meeting certain conditions like a flush in each of the three hands, or any quads or whatever.

In Open Face, 5 cards are dealt to each player and set. Then the other 8 to each player are dealt 1 at a time with a player choosing which hand gets which cards and tons of royalties - A straight or better pays in the back hand (2 units for a straight, 4 for a flush, 6 for a full house, 10 for quads, 15 for a straight flush, 20 for a royal flush) trips or better in the middle and a pair or better in the front with the top payouts (e.g. a Royal Flush in the middle or trip aces up front) paying 40 betting units.

Here is short video about the game http://www.cardplayer.com/cptv/channels/3-strategy/poker-videos/4917-poker-strategy-how-to-play-open-faced-chinese-poker

I have no fucking clue about the strategy, other than avoid fouling your hand at all costs. If you end up in a spot where you are down to the last card and can't place it legally, you get scooped by everyone (which is worth 6 units, not 2) and pay all royalties.

Tomorrow my poker savvy friends are coming over and we're going to play 4 handed. If I'm able to come up with any strategy tips I'll let you know.

Playing More than Just Hold'em

A few years ago I started player HORSE (a mix if Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, 7 card Stud and 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Eight or better) when Pokerstars established a nightly $109 buy in tournament with a $5,000 guarantee. This tournament always went off with either 48 or 40 players meaning there was always $200 or $1,000 added to the prize pool by Pokerstars in order to meet the guarantee. This seemed too good to pass up. The first time I played this tournament I won and out of the first 5 times I played I had another 1st and a 2nd place finish (clearly there was some running hot involved here) as well.Eventually they dropped the guarantee to $3,000 but not before I personally punished them on it.

A couple of other big items on my poker resume came in HORSE tournaments as well: 1) My second biggest win ever was $37,500 for finishing 4th of 444 in a $1,000 HORSE tournament and 2) I was about 90 minutes from day 3 of the $3,000 HORSE event at the 2009 WSOP when I finished 28th of about 450 in the most loaded with big name pros field I've ever faced.

So I wasn't exactly out of my element when I sat down to play $6/$12 Omaha Hi-Lo at the Oaks last night (oh how times have changed!). Since my last post I had a nice win followed by a 4 figure loss and I was in the mood to play smaller stakes and book a win just to get the momentum back in the right direction. I discovered that my opponents all either knew the basics or knew nothing about how to play Omaha.

In Omaha you get 4 cards, which can go together in 6 possible combinations of two cards (you must use exactly two cards from your hand and exactly 3 from the board of community cards). This allows the really bad players to almost always find something they like about a hand and it also means that it's much more common to make a literally unbeatable hand. When you put these two together you get a lot of loose action where many people are calling often, but only raising when they have the nuts (and raising close to 100% of the time they have the nuts).

I seemed to be the only person at the table capable of pushing the 2nd or 3rd nuts when it was obvious that no one had the nuts or folding the 2nd or 3rd nuts when someone raised because it was one of the 5 people at the table would only raise the absolute nuts. It was a fabulous game.

I played for about 4 hours and with a very average run of cards booked a $200 win. But I also got a nice reminder that I have a lot of knowledge locked away that's still there and still has value. I can still get it done at the Omaha table and I'd bet I can still get it done playing HORSE or PLO or 2-7 triple draw or any game you'd find in a poker room...OK maybe not Badugi, but that hasn't really caught on yet.

My wife is sick, but if she recovers enough to handle the kids I just might play a $600 tournament at Lucky Chances tomorrow morning that has a first place of $40,000. If I play I'll let you know how it goes.

Saturday Night No Limit

When I walked into The Oaks Club last night I found an open seat at the $15/$30 limit hold'em game and another at the "200 Max" game. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to sit down at the latter.

The 200 Max is technically not no limit because the maximum bet you can make is $200, but it plays effectively the same as no limit since a few $200 bets and raises will put just about any stack all in in short order. The blinds are $2/$4 and the maximum initial buy in is $400.

I bought in for $300 and had a very unusual hand come up almost right away. I got dealt QQ in middle position and after two players just called $4 I made it $25 to go. Everyone folded around to the first caller who immediately went all in for about $150 total. This felt like a small or medium pair to me. Every now and then someone will limp in with AA and then reraise, but even though I'd never played with this guy, I was almost positive that was not what was happening. When his money went in, I snap called him.

The board came down 2 3 4 5 6 meaning unless he had a 7 we'd both play the straight on the board and split the pot. Ugh! I rolled over my pocket queens and my opponent showed the player next to him 88 and then threw his cards in face down!

What's supposed to happen when someone throws their hand away - even if they're supposed to get half the pot no matter what they have - the dealer is supposed to take their hand, put it in the muck with the rest of the dead cards, and push the pot to the player who turned their hand face up. After a count of two that's exactly what happened. Just after the dealer had killed his hand, someone said something and the player who had mucked his hand sat back down expecting to get half the pot. But the rules are pretty clear on this and there was minimal protest after the rule was explained by the dealer.

Sometimes in this situation the winning player will say something like "Clearly you didn't see the straight, but you were entitled to half the pot - let's just split it and move on." Of course this is a lose translation - usually it's more like "You not see straight? Sheeeeeiiiiit. OK give him half pot. Sheeeeeeittt. God damn it." (God damn it is like a verbal period for many poker players). I considered this for about one second, but I'm not giving away $150+ to be a nice guy. If you're going to play you need to know the rules.

I had a couple of bluffs work out and I had $600 in front of me when the next big hand came up. Before the flop the player just after the big blind put in $8 before the cards came out to "Kill it," meaning instead of $4 to call pre flop it would now be $8 to go and the player who put in the $8 could raise if the action got back to him and no one had raised yet (think of it as putting in a super big blind). This is a stupid thing to do because you have to put in money before you've seen your cards, but it effectively doubles the stakes for that one hand.

On the hand in question, 7 of us put in $8 before the flop, I had 87 of hearts, and the flop came down T 7 2 with two hearts, giving me middle pair with a flush draw. It was checked to me and I bet $45. I had kind of a mediocre hand at the moment, but there were 14 cards that could come on the turn to make me a very strong hand and I might win the $51 ($5 comes out of every pot for the rake) in the pot without getting called.

One player behind me called the $45 and then the small blind check raised to $155. At this point I was almost positive I was behind, but there was no chance of me folding giving the strength of my draw. My first instinct was to hit it with a max raise, but I took my time, thought for about 10 seconds and considered just calling. At the end of that 10 seconds I decided "Fuck calling, I'm going to take this down right here" and I made it $355 to go.

In my mind I had won the pot as soon as I put my money in. I new this was a good spot to apply pressure and my read of the situation was that I was going to take it down without a fight. But after about 30 seconds my opponent counted out another $200 from his stack and pushed it into the pot. He'd also started with a little over $600 and we each had maybe $175 left in front of us. The turn paired the ten and my opponent checked it to me.

At this point as a matter of reflex I moved all in. I suppose I could have checked and tried to save that $175 if I didn't make my flush. In fact I easily could have been drawing dead at that point. But the years of training myself to think "you're never going to win if you play like a pussy" kicked in. If you added up the amount of time it took for the dealer to put our the turn card, my opponent to check and my chips making their way into the pot it was 2 or 3 seconds total. After another 2 or 3 seconds my opponent slammed his cards down on the table and they flipped over showing 72! He'd flopped two pair and hand his hand totally killed by the turn.

After winning that pot I had over $1,000 in front of me. Two hands later I raised to $25 with KK, got 4 callers, and stacked a guy with AQ for about $150 when the flop came down Q 2 3.

I had a cold stretch of about 90 minutes where I didn't make any real hands and lost a bluff or two, but I made up for it with another big pot. I raised with to $15 with 99, got called by the big blind and the flop came down J 9 8 with two diamonds. BINGO! She checked, I bet $25 and she raised it to $50. Double Bingo! I wasn't going to mess around on a board with so many draws so I made it $150 and she went all in for $350. Now I was worried that I might be up against QT, but never in a million years would I fold middle set heads up in a cash game. I called, the turn and river were both cards below 6 and my opponent showed J8! Sweet!

I played a few more rounds, but when I took my chips to the cage I had $1,356 for a profit of $1,056. I think my next session will have to be another visit to this exact same game.

Back on Track

After getting my ass beat at Bay 101 on Tuesday I wasn't sure what to play when I walked through the door at The Oaks on Thursday. I felt like it might make sense to play $6/$12 for a week or two and books some wins to get back on track. After my 2 hours at the $2/$3/$5 game in my previous session the idea of playing some no limit sounded like fun. And of course I've been doing well at the Oaks' $15/$30 game recently and I didn't think one bad session, no matter how bad, should throw me off from what has otherwise been working.

When I took a look at the $15/$30 it was an easy decision - only one semi tough player that I knew was in the game along with a few known soft spots, a couple of players who were new to me and one or two OK players. When they called my name I bought in for $1,000 and tried to focus on taking my time and making the best possible decision at opportunity.

I had two interesting hands come up over the course of the night where I wasn't really sure what to do. In the first hand I had K8 off in the big blind. With a few limpers the button raised to $30, I called along with the small blind and we took the flop 6 handed.

The flop came down K J 8 with two hearts making me two pair. Even though this was a pretty big pot and I might be able to check raise the button and thin the field, I figured it was better to fire out. This would prevent any chance of a free turn card for my opponents and probably no one would put my on a big hand. I bet $15 and got three callers before the button raised. I three bet it and four of us saw the turn.

The turn came down an off suit ten. Ugh. At least it wasn't a heart or a jack which would have meant certain doom, but now there were a few more hands that could beat me and a ton of danger cards could come on the river. I decided to be conservative and checked. When it got to the button he bet out. Part of me feels like I should have popped it here to punish the draws, but I didn't feel confident that I had the best hand, so I just called and we took the river 4 way.

A total brick came on the end and I checked again still unsure if I had the best hand. The button bet again and I was the only caller, He rolled over AA and I took down a nice pot. I won the pot, but I don't know if I should have bet the turn, check raised the turn, bet the river (that would have been an ultra confusing line for my opponents), or check raised the river. I'm still thinking about it...

A little while after that hand I was dealt AA and it held up. With those hands combined I was about $500 to the good and feeling fantastic. The World Series was on, there weren't any total dirt-bags at my table, and I was really in the mood to be playing.

Later in the session the second tricky hand came up. I raised from early position with KJ of diamonds and got called by a late position player, the small blind and the big blind. The flop came down J 5 3 with two clubs and the small blind bet out. Feeling no need to be tricky I raised. The other player called two cold and the small blind three bet it. I didn't love getting three bet but the small blind was a wacky player so I wasn't going anywhere and the other player came along too. The turn was a red 2, the small blind bet out and I raised it again planning to check the river if I got called and fold to a 3 bet. I was also hoping to unload the other player, but he called two bets cold - which I thought almost certainly meant a flush draw - and the small blind just called as well.

The river was the 10 of clubs completing the flush draw. After the small blind and I checked, the other player fired out immediately. Drat! I was looking at a pot with $480 in it only needing to call $30 to potentially win it. But I was also almost positive that I was behind. I couldn't think of a hand that could call two cold on the flop and two cold on the turn that I could beat. But I was getting 16 to 1 on a call so even if I was 90% sure I was toast I had to call. If I was 95% sure I couldn't win I should fold.

But then the small blind called in front of me. I was 50/50 on whether I had her beat so needing to have the best hand vs two opponents I quickly folded. When the cards got turned over the other player had AQ both black, but upon closer inspection only one was a club! Then the small blind showed J9! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Son of a bitch!

My first thought was that this was a hopeless bluff that had no chance of working against two players. But it almost worked so I think it was a good play. Calling the flop and turn were shitty plays made by a shitty player, but it was good bet on the river...made by a shitty player. Shit! This is one where I know folding was right, but it still didn't feel good losing that pot. Double shit!

Happily I had what felt like a pretty average run of cards the rest of the night and ended up booking a $450 win over the course of a 4 hour session.

I'll be back at the tables on Saturday night hoping for a run of 17 full houses.