Dave's Poker Blog

The Best Day To Play

2011-09-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was 21 and looking to take my first shot at the $15/$30 game at the Oaks Club. I asked one of the grizzled old veteran players who played a mix if $6/$12 and $15/$30 when the best time to take a shot was. "Holiday Weekends" were the first words out of his mouth.

I've confirmed that sentiment many, may times. In fact for my entire professional career, three day weekends were the exact opposite of time off. This weekend I had a half day on Friday, and with Monday being a holiday as well this was the most time I've taken off from working in I'm not sure how many years. It may stretch all the way back to my honeymoon in 2005.

Yesterday in the tradition of people who only play every now and then I took a trip to the Oaks to play for a few hours. It was the best game that I can remember. It seemed like every hand was 6 or 7 way action for one bet before the flop and anytime someone bet they had a hand and if they raised it meant a monster.

Most people think the best games are the ones with tons of ill advised raising and huge pots. Those games are good, but it's hard to extract maximum advantage when the clowns you are playing against could have anything and the fluctuations are off the charts. I'd greatly prefer everyone playing as straightforward and passive as possible. It's almost impossible to lose in those games over any significant length of time.

Family comes first these days and I wasn't playing for big money so I split a small winner after about 3 hours. But I did confirm one more time that hitting the tables over a three day weekend is never a bad idea.

Missing Poker

2011-08-27T21:06:00.001-07:00

I've been missing poker lately. I've also missed writing in the blog. Hang tight poker fans, because eventually I'll get back to writing.

In the meantime, good luck to you all!

E-mail from Pokerstars

2011-06-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

I have yet to investigate, but this leads me to believe that FullTilt is totally screwed:

We would like to bring your attention to the following two press releases:

PokerStars Official Statement, June 29 2011

In light of today's news that Alderney Gambling Control Commission has suspended Full Tilt Poker's license, PokerStars wishes to assure our customers that their funds are completely safe and that our operations are completely unaffected. The Isle of Man Gaming Commission today re-affirmed that PokerStars' worldwide licensing is intact and that our operations are in full compliance with all of its requirements. PokerStars' online operations continue as normal and all funds in players' accounts are safe and available for withdrawal as usual with no delays.

PokerStars also remains in full compliance with our licenses in other jurisdictions where we are regulated, including France, Italy and Estonia.

As provided under our licensing, PokerStars has always maintained the integrity and security of our players' funds, by keeping all such funds in segregated bank accounts, always available for immediate withdrawal.

Since the actions of US Department of Justice in April, we have returned more than $120 million to US players and continue to act upon requests as they are received. Players outside the US have not been affected and all cash-outs have been processed without delays. Further, PokerStars entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice which expressly confirmed the company's ability to operate outside the US.

We will continue to operate as a responsible corporate citizen and are committed to serving the needs of our customers in complete compliance with our regulatory requirements.

IOM Gambling Supervision Commission Statement, June 29 2011

The Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission wishes to make it clear that the licensing status of PokerStars in the Isle of Man remains unchanged following today's statement from the Gambling Control Commission in Alderney. Alderney is a separate jurisdiction from the Isle of Man and the operation in question is separate from PokerStars.

PokerStars continues to demonstrate compliance with its licence conditions in the Isle of Man. PokerStars continues to offer withdrawals to any players who wish to withdraw their funds, including players in the USAto whom PokerStars does not currently offer real-money gaming.

The official statement from the IOM Gambling Supervision Commission can be found here.

We would like to thank you for your continued support.

Best Regards,
The PokerStarsPartners Team

Dear WSOP: I Miss You!

2011-06-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

I looked a twitter today and saw a post from Phil Helmuth that he'd finished 2nd to John Juanda in the $10,000 NL 2-7 event at the WSOP. My first thought was "Holy shit the WSOP is already underway? I guess it's the middle of June. I am really out of touch!"

I've played 3-10 events at the WSOP every year for the past 6 years cashing at least once every year except 2007. This year Vegas is not in my plans and it's really hitting me how over my poker career feels.

The time I spent in Vegas every summer taking my shot at the big time was always the most hopeful time of year for me. Every tournament buy in was the chance to win hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars and especially in the last few years I knew I was good enough to get the job done if I got a few breaks. I didn't need a Moneymaker miracle, just a few key hands to go my way and I could take care of the rest.

I'm missing that feeling of walking into the Rio with a roll of $100 bills so fat that I can't fit it into one pocket. I miss the feeling of making it to Day 2 after playing for 15 hours and sealing my chips in a tamper proof plastic bag. I miss the feeling of total calm that settles over you when you make the money and it's all gravy from that point on. I miss calling my backers to tell them the good news. A little piece of me even misses the soul crushing oh so long deep breath filled walk from the Amazon room back to my room at the Rio after getting busted.

I have no idea what the future holds for my WSOP career. Right now my bankroll is essentially zero. I burned off all buy a few thousand bucks paying bills during the 6 month transition between full time poker pro and full time Business Development Manager at HitFix. The rest has been absorbed into a standard bank account waiting to be spent on an unexpected car repair or some future vacation.

At this point I feel like there's a good chance that I won't play more than 1 or 2 events in the next 10 years and when I do play I'm probably going to be absolutely terrified.

Then again, maybe I'm not washed up just yet. As they say, there's always next year.

Poker Lessons and Poker Coaching with Dr. M

2011-05-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

Over the years I've tried to help friends and family get the most out of their time spent playing poker. It's not always easy. Learning how to play poker is like learning anything else that has deep complexity. It takes time, it takes effort and it takes practice. Most beginners are looking for the secret code that's going to let them win like I do so they can dive into the deep end and try to swim.

At least a dozen times I've been faced with a situation where someone who has almost no poker knowledge beyond what beats what, wanting to know how to play because we are at a casino or they've decided to play online after watching me play. I could talk for days about just starting hands and now I have to condense 10 years of knowledge into 10 minutes?

On the other end of the spectrum is my only current student (I'll call him Dr. M). Dr. M is actually a doctor which is great because he can afford to pay me $50 an hour to help him and because it means he's spent a huge chunk of his life learning. Dr. M has read just about every poker book out there so if I tell him that with an M of 10 the implied odds are not there to limp in the hijack he knows what I mean without having to think about it.

I've found it interesting that what Dr. M needs is not lessons, but rather coaching. What's the different between lessons and coaching? You get golf lessons when you're shooting 110, take 3 shots to get out of a sand trap and couldn't read a putt if it was in neon block letters. You get coaching when you're shooting 75 and want to get it down to 72. With Dr. M all the pieces are there, the just need to be put in the right place.

At this point I've been coaching Dr. M for almost a year and a half, talking to him about every 3 weeks on average. In the past two months he's had 3 or 4 solid tournament scores so we've been talking more often (he's got the fever). Since I don't get to the tables much these days, I'm hoping to start sharing pieces of my conversations with Dr. M on this blog in the coming weeks and months.

Or I might totally forget and never share a single hand! That's sort of how I work. We'll see...

If you're interested in lessons, coaching or poker consulting please send me an e-mail at wdhuff@gmail.com.

Which U.S. Friendly Poker Site Will Be the New #1?

2011-05-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Rakebacknation.com is where I've always gotten my rakeback (I'll have to talk to them about ads since I'm always giving them free press) and also where I've gone to discover new reliable poker sites. Your money isn't 100% safe on any site since you never know when they'll go under, but at least if you choose one of the sites listed on RBN you know they've been thoroughly checked out.

Right now they have 7 U.S. friendly poker sites listed, all of which were barely an afterthought two weeks ago. Interestingly enough those 7 sites are under only two umbrellas: Merge and Cake.

It's fairly common for sites to join forces and start a network. In those situations both sites feature the same cash games, but if you log in from site A, site A gets any rake you pay even if you're playing against some players from site B. Usually sites in these networks run their own tournaments and sit-n-gos, but lumping cash game players together makes it easier to create the critical mass required to have games running regularly.

Apparently the Merge Network is currently the most trafficked in the US with Carbon Poker as it's flagship room and RPM coming in second. The Cake Network, made up of Cake Poker, Doyle's Room and a few smaller sites is the other major player in U.S. online poker today.

If you ask me it won't take long for Cake and Doyle to overtake Merge and get out to a large lead. In a business with choices brand recognition is huge. Doyle's Room and Cake have been blasting me in the face with images of Doyle's road worn mug and massive cakes for years now. Every time I turn my head Doyle Brunson is spitting out some stolen quote about champions and Cake is telling me to eat more cake or scarf more chips.

Their competition is not nearly as entrenched and while I've played on Carbon Poker it was only to target a specific promotion and while doing so I often asked myself "What they hell are you doing playing on this bullshit site!?"

Sometime next weekend I'm going to poke around on the remaining U.S. options and evaluate the possibilities. Be sure to check back for that report and if you don't want to forget, sign up for e-mail alerts on the right side of this page.

Who do you think will win in the end?

I've Updated My Blog Design!

2011-05-01T17:32:00.000-07:00

After a few months in the website business I realized that my blog was an outdated eyesore! I've made a few adjustments, to give my blog a more modern feel and I'm going to try to start posting regularly again about all things poker.

In the right sidebar I've added a place to get notified every time I post and I'd encourage you all to enter your e-mail there so you don't miss any of my sometimes informative, slightly entertaining and occasionally obscene poker posts.

If you have any negative feed back please go stuff yourself and I hope you start losing all of your pocket aces to one outers. Actually I take that back. I hope you get hit in the face with an errant golf ball which is actually much more pleasant (I don't want to wish one outters on anyone).

Party Poker Making a Push?

2011-04-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

I got an e-mail from someone at an ad network yesterday asking about advertising on my blog. In 5 years of posting this is the first time I've been contacted by an advertiser (not surprising given my very lite traffic).

I've had those silly banner ads for Pokerstars and FullTilt in my sidebar for years and never made a dime so when someone told me me they'd give me $250 to take those down and put up an ad for their client it took me all of 7 seconds to write them back and say yes.

I was guessing that I'd find myself with an ad for some small site I'd never heard of, but much to my shock it was Party Poker! Party left the US market within weeks of the UIGEA passing in 2006 and I'm sure they've been waiting eagerly for these past 4+ years to be rewarded for following the rules.

I see this as a good sign for the future of U.S. online poker. If Party thinks they'll be making a comeback and they're willing to bet on it by paying to get their name out there, then I tend to think they know what they're doing.

Right now I've got the over under for above board U.S. based pokersites launching at 24 months.

Were the Feds Bribed Into Shutting Down Major Online Companies?

2011-04-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

When I originally heard the news that Pokerstars, Absolute Poker and FullTilt had been shutdown by the feds I assumed this meant curtains for the entire U.S. online poker industry. But so far that's not the case.

The big three had maybe 90% of the market share, but there are a half dozen other sites that have had small, but significant player bases. Is it possible that one of these sites will become the new leader in the U.S. market or will the rest of these sites get picked off as well?

I'm not one to put forth conspiracy theories and I don't spend much time thinking about what goes on behind the scenes in government, but something just doesn't add up here.

About a year ago the state of Kentucky tried to seize the domain names of a bunch of online casinos, poker sites, and sports betting sites just like the federal government did on Friday. They weren't able to do it because the state government just didn't have enough muscle behind it. But many of the sites took action and blocked users who lived in Kentucky so they wouldn't get sued.

Did Kentucky go after Pokerstars, FullTilt and Absolute? Of course they did. But here's where it gets interesting. They went after over 140 other sites as well. Online poker rooms and casinos are not trying to hide so I'm sure all it took was an afternoon pounding the keys on Google to generate that list.

There is a pretty big difference between 3 and 140. I get spam e-mail from 3 online casinos a day and you'll find ads for at least 7 or 8 in every issue of every poker magazine.

So why did the feds stop at the big 3 instead of going after everyone? Because someone at one of the other half dozen sites that has a chance to inherit the U.S. online poker kingdom bribed someone high up to make sure the shutdown only affected the big 3.

It's like in the movie Heat when Tone Loc trys to trade information about Robert De Niro's crew to Al Pacino in exchange for Pacino shutting down the chop shop across town so that Tone's chop shop can prosper. It was a minor sub plot at most, but you get the idea.

Pokerstars was making billions of dollars off the U.S. market. Not millions, not tens of millions, not hundreds of millions - BILLIONS! All that demand is still there and all you have to do is look at what happened in 2006 to see the effect of the industry leader stepping aside.

Party Poker was King in 2006, Pokerstars was a Duke and Fulltilt was more like the manager of the local brothel. But when the Unlawful Gaming Enforcement Act passed Party Poker left the U.S. market and in a matter of a few short months pokerstars had swallowed up most of their customer base with Fulltilt scooping in some sizable crumbs.

If things stand as they do today, one of these smaller sites like Cake Poker, Carbon Poker, Bodog or Doyle's Room is going to blow up and a handful of people are going to get very, very rich. Actually there's no chance of it being Bodog because their software is a steaming pile of shit.

Maybe these other dominos are going to fall...but maybe not.

Should Online Gambling Be Illegal - A Mashable Poll

2011-04-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

As part of my new job I read a half dozen daily e-mail news letters to stay up to speed on what's going on in the worlds of technology, the web, advertising and online media. One of the newsletters I skim a few times a week is Mashable.

On Sunday Mashable had an article about the shutdown of Pokerstars, Fulltilt, and Absolute Poker part of which was a poll. More interesting than the poll results was the question - "Should online gambling be illegal."

This is a much different question that should online *poker* be illegal. Even though this is an online poker story and series of events, Mashable has done what so many other news outlets have done in the past and lump poker together with other forms of wagering.

So should online gambling be illegal? Probably. Games of chance that have totally fixed odds (meaning they're always the same not 'The Fix is in!' - actually the fix is in and everyone knows it) and little or no chance for the player to affect the outcome do not belong on the Internet. Those are my personal feelings, but frankly I can't back them up with logic.

If you want to be a total fuck head and play online craps it really shouldn't be up to the federal government to make that decision for you. They're not trying to save you from buying a TV that costs as much as a months pay or buying some sweet rims for that 86' Buick Skylark.

You can go spend $5,000 on Superbowl tickets for a game that lasts 3 hours and most people would think that it's fine if you want to spend your money that way. But most of those same people would think you were totally nuts if you went to a casino and lost $5,000 even if it took you a week. To them it doesn't matter if you had a great time. All that matters is that they know that gambling is bad and wrong and you shouldn't do it because that's been beaten into their brain from the time they were 5 years old.

Should wagering on games of skill online be illegal? Absolutely not! (If you'd like to argue that poker is a game of chance and not a game of skill, just don't - you're wrong). Don't tell me what I can and can't spend my money on. If I want to piss it all away, that's up to me.

I'm in favor of any game with any element of skill being played for money online. I'm talking everything from Chess to Hearts to board games. I'd love to play a winner take all game of Monopoly for $5 every now and then.

Now some of you might say Monopoly is a game of chance. I would disagree there, but would say there's room for debate. I tend to think that anything that involves decisions and certainly negotiation of trades means it's a skill game with an element of short term luck. Think about it this way, do you think you could beat an average 10 year old more times than not?

So what was the exact poll at Mashable and what were the results?

Yes, it's now a victimless crime and people will do it anyway - 2,888 votes (53%)

No, it makes it too easy for people to become addicted to gambling - 793 votes (15%)

Maybe, if it's tightly regulated to prevent cheating and fraud - 1,727 votes (32%)

I have to say that this poll is garbage because they didn't ask the right question and they put to many qualifiers in the answers. Can't I think no without the reason being my concern for gambling addicts? Can't I think maybe without my only concern being cheating and fraud?

What's interesting is that despite what the average American might think online poker on the sites that were just shut down was EXTREMELY regulated to prevent cheating and fraud. Now players will be shifting to other less reputable sites which are less regulated and more dangerous.

Even with my complaints I'd like to note that only 15% of people said flat out no.

What do you think? Leave me some comments if you have an opinion.

More on the Fate of Online Poker

2011-04-16T11:51:00.001-07:00

24 hours after the Federal Government shut down online poker in the U.S. you now get a message from the FBI if you try to log on to Pokerstars, Fulltilt or Absolute Poker from the web. If you open the software you get a message telling you that U.S. players can no longer play for real money, but your money is safe and they've had to rework the guaranteed prize pools for their tournaments.

My prediction is this will be the effective end for many of the medium sized sites. Pokerstars and Fulltilt are so big that even though they've lost 50% of their customers overnight they'll be able to survive.

I don't think others will be so lucky. I expect familiar names like Cake Poker, Doyle's Room and maybe even Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker (who were all in trouble anyway) will become total ghost towns and may close up shop.

Like I said in my last post, in the long term this is good news. Pokerstars and Fulltilt are losing tens of millions of dollars *every day* that poker is shut down in the U.S. They and all the people who have been playing poker online in the U.S. finally have some real motivation to get pissed and give a real push for change.

When the day comes that Average Joe U.S.A. can deposit with a credit card and be sure that his money is safe the influx of players who have no clue what they're doing is going to be overwhelming.

I'm not just talking about people who have never played poker before. I'm talking about people who play in Vegas and people who have played in home games or local casinos too. People who feel like they know what they're doing, but are playing at a pretty basic level will be everywhere. They will certainly have no chance against me or other online pros (and former pros), and will probably get crushed by even the players who are skilled enough to be small to medium losers in the current online poker world. A pit bull might be pretty tough, but not in a fight against a lion or a grizzly bear...or a T-Rex! CHOMP!

In related news I've read that "online poker" is being legalized in Washington D.C. As far as I can tell sometime around September if you're within the boarders of D.C. you'll be able to play against other people who are within the boarders. Also there will be terminals in bars and hotel lobbies and other hot spots where you can play even if you don't have a computer.

The big red flag here is that it's going to be run by the D.C. Lottery. The worst thing for players is to have one entity as the only game in town and to make it worse it's a government agency. The software they're going to roll out is going to be a steaming pile of shit. Paradise poker circa 2000 will look like Pokerstars software circa 2015 compared to what the people at the lottery are going to put out.

More importantly - IT'S THE LOTTERY! The Lottery is the one wagering entity that is more used to squeezing every drop of blood out of it's customers than any other. Typically 40% to 50% of the money wagered on lotteries goes to the government that is running it. That is roughly 3 times worse than the *worst* bets in a Vegas Casino 10 times worse than the bad games like roulette and 30 times worse than blackjack and some of the bets on the craps table.

My guess is the D.C. "Online Poker" will have the highest rake ever seen at a poker table with the shittiest software.

Online Poker Goes KA-BOOM!

2011-04-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

It only took 4.5 years for the federal government to act on the bullshit, confusing legislation they passed in late 2006. Legislation that was 40 pages long and didn't define anything. Honestly a better bill could have been written by most college freshman.

In a speedy 4.5 years the fuckheads in Washington finally decided to do something to shut down online poker in the U.S. They froze all of the payment processor accounts and more importantly seized the domain names of Fulltilt, AP, Pokerstars and others.

You can read the whole indictment here: INDICTMENT!

The software still works and you can still go to the website, but you can't sit in a real money game and I hear that you can't cashout from some sites.

Personally, I did however manage to cash out the last $500 bucks I still had sitting on AP (luckily I cashed out everything but that last week and the money hit my bank account today), but that doesn't mean I'll get it anytime soon or ever.

I have about $100 on Bodog and just to test the waters I put down a $10 bet that Derek Rose would average less than 25 points per game in the 1st round of the NBA playoffs. Surprisingly everything seems normal there.

The dream is that online poker will be 100% destroyed in the U.S. and will then come back with U.S. based poker rooms. If the day comes when average Joe USA can deposit with a credit card and feel sure that his money is safe, the cash is going to start pouring down from the heavens for people like me.

If I could go back to early 2004 with the skills I have now I could make $200 an hour. Full blown U.S. based online poker could bring games as good as those of that era.

My condolences go out to everyone playing online poker for a living. It's a sad day for all of you and best of luck in the transition to the next chapter of your professional lives. And a BIG fuck you to the handful of people that tacked the UIGEA onto the Safe Port Act of 2006. You're all a bunch of cowards.

Now that I've taken some time off I'm actually excited to play some poker every now and then. I imagine I'll join the ranks of the weekend warriors at the Oaks club and other bay area card rooms. I think the 2.5 million hands I've played online might give me a small advantage. :)

Beating the Shit Out of Low Stakes Players

2011-04-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

While writing my last post I jumped into two $10 multitables, and one $20. I cashed in all three for a net of about $75, and then took $150 off the $1/$2 tables on bodog and AP in about 200 hands. $150 isn't exactly a ton of money, but it is 75 big bets which is a beatdown no matter how you spin it.

$1,000 bankroll increased by more than 20% and up to $1,225. Suck it low stakes jerks!

Rebuilding

2011-04-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

My bankroll is at it's lowest point in 10 years. I was a skinny, wide eyed 21 year old (OK not that skinny and maybe more squinty and shifty than wide eyed) playing $3/$6 limit hold'em 10 handed at the Oaks club about 10 hours a week the last time I had this little to work with.

But I don't really need a bankroll anymore. The crushing vise of monthly expenses is now being held open by a paycheck. A paycheck that comes in good times and bad and reads exactly the same, down to the cent, every month.

I've seen a few of the top pros start with very small bankrolls (orders of magnitude less than I have) and turn them into something significant as a personal challenge. The point is to prove to others and themselves that they could start from scratch and make it all over again.

I've forgotten his name, but one of the top SNG players set a goal to take $5 and turn it into $10,000 in one month. One thing he had going for him was that he was a mental freak of nature and had an ideal set up in terms of many huge monitors allowing him to play up to 300 SNGs in a day.

Also he cheated. He lost his $5 bankroll many times and simply started again with another $5. I could make $5 Keno bets until one hit big and then say "Look! I turned $5 into $1,000 playing Keno! In the end, if you ignore the cheating aspect, he did it.

More impressive was Chris Ferguson turning *zero* dollars into $10,000. He started with freerolls only until he could scrape together a couple dollars and then shifted to playing at the micro stakes. Once he had $50 or $100 it didn't take him long to go the rest of the way.

I had about $3,000 when I started my career as a prop player in July of 2003. In April of 2004 when I went off totally on my own and starting playing 90% online I had about $10,000. In the good times from 2005-mid 2008 I kept at least $30,000 to work with and made a great living working about 30 hours a week. From the end of the flush years until the fall of 2010 I typically had a $10,000 bankroll and was still able to support my family of three entirely from poker winnings.

Now I have a job and a $1,000 bankroll. The job pays for the 3 bedroom house in Northern California, keeps the lights on and puts food on the table, but not much else. Playing poker is going to be the difference between bud lite and burgers or pinot noir and filets for a while.

For some people it might be hard to drop so far down in stakes. After all, I've played 6 tournaments with buy ins of $5,000+, 75-100 with buy ins of $1,000+, I have no idea how many $200-$500 buy in tournaments, and now I'll be locking horns with the $10 and $20 players. For me, I don't really care. It's not about the thrill of victory or getting in Carplayer magazine any more. It's mostly about dollars, partially about about fun, and a little bit about delivering soul crushing beats to egomaniacal college kids (You know who you are! I'm coming to crush you!).

My new job has exposed me to google analytics and I've discovered that I have about 500 people visit my blog each month which is more than I thought and makes me feel like I should get back to writing at least weekly.

I'm not sure what I can do with $1,000 playing 10 hours a week, but I'll try to keep you posted. Hopefully it will all be good news.

On to the Next Chapter

2011-03-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

After about 3 months of part time consulting, I started working full time at www.hitfix.com last week. If you haven't heard of HitFix it's an entertainment news website with about 1.3 million unique users a month that covers music, movies and TV without the gossip.

HitFix has about 20 employees and I've been hired to be the Business Development Manager. Essentially I'll be finding and negotiating with new partners, offering input on how HitFix does everything from the smallest details to the long term strategy, and doing everything the CEO needs to get done, but doesn't have time for.

So far it's been great. I'm still working from home and I've really been enjoying using my brain in new ways. Of course getting paid every day - even on the bad days - feels like a special treat after 7 years of ups and downs.

Looking back I can't believe the amounts of money I had on the line day in and day out. I lost enough to pay my mortgage for 3 months in an hour once. Of course there were a handful of times that I won enough in a day to pay my mortgage for a year or more.

I'm going to miss those days walking around with a stack of hundreds in my front pocket so thick that it looked like I had two decks of cards in there. But I can't remember ever being so relaxed.

Amazingly I think I am gambled out. It took 10 years, of poker 6 days a week and 25 days a year in Vegas, but I've finally had enough.

I'm sure I'll eventually get back to playing somewhat regularly. When that happens I'll try to get back to posting about my experiences at what will be comparatively low stakes.

The best part is if I do play and win, I can spend that money without having to worry about saving it for my next big loss.

Thanks for reading!

Semi-retired

2011-01-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

I started playing poker for a living in July 2003 and after more than 7 years of working for myself I got a job.

September was the worst month I ever had as a poker player. I got totally crushed and flushed the vase majority of my bankroll. I tried to recover in October, but my confidence was at an all time low and no matter how far I dropped in stakes I couldn't seem to make it work. I didn't play for any significant stakes in November or December and my action was limited to a few dozen $20-$50 multitalbes, 2 or 3 $200 tournaments in person and a half dozen sessions at the Oaks Club.

Sometime in October my wife and I decided that one of use needed to get a job. Since she has a mechanical engineering degree from Berkeley she was the prime candidate, but as we all know this is a terrible time to be looking for work.

I applied to a few jobs as well. The most interesting by far has been ring games manager at pokerstars. If you look at the list of qualifications and skills required I am a slam dunk candidate, but the guy in charge of hiring is in no hurry to hire anyone so that is still pending. Even if I get offered the job I'm not likely to take it since it would require moving to the Isle of Mann (really!). I've spent the time since I applied trying to decide the dollar about it would take to get me and my family to move 6,000 miles. It's a lot, but not so much that I think there's zero chance that I'll be offered that much.

But as I said above I actually have a job right now. I'm working in a two tiered capacity at entertainment website www.HitFix.com. The first part is developing a game that is the bastard cousin of fantasy sports but for reality TV. Our first show is going to be American Idol and the game should be up and running for the top 20 show on February 24th.

On top of that I've been working in a business development capacity generating leads for partnerships as well as doing some general quality control for the website as a whole. Some of you might be thinking "What the hell do you know about working for an entertainment website? You're full of shit!" All I can say is so far I know a lot more than I thought. We'll see how it goes.

As far as poker goes, this year I've made about $700 in 10 hours playing $13 Ultra Turbo tournaments on Absolute, but we all know that that's just running crazy hot at those stakes.

For now poker is on the backburner as I dive headfirst into the world of entertainment news!

Let's Oak it Up!

2010-11-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

After my recent online woes, I've been taking a break and spending a fair amount of time at the Oaks club playing against live opponents. The 15 minute commute isn't as fun as the 10 second commute from my bed to my computer, but I guess I can't complain.

The biggest game at the Oaks is $30/$60 limit hold'em and there are a few solid regulars. I have my eye on that game, but for now I'm sticking to $15/$30 where it seems not a single player is any better than just average.

Most players let their ego get in the way of making the best decisions in spots like these. Do I think I can beat the Oaks club $30/$60? I'm 99% sure that I can. But that doesn't mean it's the most profitable thing to do. Even if I'm the best player in the game, if everyone else is pretty good, I'd rather play for less money against a bunch of greatly inferior players. Even if the money is the same long term it's better to win one big bet per hour at $15/$30 than half a big bet per hour at $30/$60 because you'll face smaller fluctuations and less stress.

I've played 6 sessions averaging about 5 hours apiece and picked up $1,743 in the process. This is a very, very small set of data, but it's not an accident. There are no pros in the $15/$30 game and recreational players just can't keep up with someone who has played well over a million hands of limit hold'em against tough competition.

Another thing that's great about playing in person is players can't dodge me. Players mainly stick to one stakes and if there is only one game going they are stuck. No one is going to leave the game just because I joined and it got tougher. Whereas online there are a zillion games going and it takes 30 seconds to get into a new one.

Hopefully I can keep the money rolling in from the Oaks players for a while.

When to Go For It and When to Hold Back

2010-10-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post on 10/20, but didn't finish it until 10/24. Rather than fix stuff like "yesterday" or "last Saturday" I just put this little sentence in.

I've been playing a lot of small stakes multitable tournaments lately with some success. In fact I keep cashing for about $1,200.

Shortly after my last post I finished 2nd in a $55 tournament with 100 or so entrants on Absolute which paid $1,150. Then on Saturday I had a $2,000 day, $1,175 of which came from winning a $22 tournament with about 200 entrants on Pokerstars. And yesterday I finished 3rd in a $55 tournament on Absolute with 241 entrants which paid $1,200. Of course I have been playing a lot of tournaments so it's not like that's all profit, but it has still been a good run.

During my time at the tables recently I came across a risky situation where going for it was clearly the thing to do in a spot where weaker players might not have and another where taking a very conservative approach was the way to go.

The first situation came in a $55 tournament on pokerstars with about 1,100 entrants that paid 153 spots. The blinds were 500/1,000, I was in the big blind with 14,000 chips behind, and we were down to 157 players. I got dealt AQ suited and when the action made it around to the small blind he moved all in for 20,000.

We'd started the tournament with 3,000 chips so I wasn't too far off of average which was about 21,000. The decision I was faces with was, fold and make the money for sure or call and potentially go broke.

Almost all pros would agree that if you can avoid risking your whole stack on one hand you should and anyone can tell you that going broke just short of the money totally sucks. Also often times when a player overbets the pot preflop like this they have AK which would completely dominate my AQ.

With that said, my opponent knows we're only a hand or two away from making the money and if I was in his shoes I'd be raising any two cards from the small blind (I wouldn't got all in with any two, but I'd raise something).

What was running though my mind was if I played this situation 100 times (or 1,000) would I make more by folding and bringing home at least the $75 for 153rd place 100% of the time or would I make more by sometimes going broke and losing my $55 but in but other times taking a stack of 31,000 (about 150% of average) into the money?

I'd be pretty close to even money against an underpair, but I'd be 3 to 2 against suited connectors, 2 to 1 against total garbage unders and 7 to 3 against a worse ace. Most importantly I thought the chance of being dominated by AA, KK, QQ or AK was negligible. Those hands make up about 2% of the starting card combinations and even with AK it would be a rare opponent who would move all in here.

Pile that all together and I figured I was at least 60% against his range. Now if you do a detailed analysis you might find that it's worth about $84 more to call than to fold. Of course you might not find that because you worked it out correctly and the shit I just did is total garbage loaded with fallacies. Which is why I deleted it out of frustration! With that said, $84 seems about right.

The brass tacks is, even though I was just short of the money it was still worth it to go for it. In the end I let my time bank run all the way down to give myself the best chance to sneak in to the money before I called. When the cards got turned over I was up against A6 off suit which meant I was 72% to win and 6% to tie.

A 6 came on the flop and I finished 155th, but despite that fact it would have been a major mistake to fold here.

At the same time I was playing in a $55 tournament on Absolute with about 100 entrants (I mentioned it above). I went into full on beast mode and by the time we were down to 5 players I was in first with 75,000 chips. The player dead to my left (let's call him Jerk Face) was in second with 70,000 and the other three players all had between 10,000 and 20,000.

One of my great strengths is finding situations where I can raise with any two cards and show positive expected value. After you've played a zillion tournament you get a sense for when other players are going to fold unless they find a total monster hand. At most final tables in tournaments of this size with players of this caliber playing loose aggressive is the only way to go. Every now and then you'll blow up an finish 8th or 9th, but much more often you'll end up at the top. When I get to a final table with an average stack or more I tend to win outright.

As per usual, in this case it was my aggressive style and not the cards I was getting that led to my sizable stack. But when we got to five handed I had to shift gears. On the first hand that we were down to five players I raised, and Jerk Face reraised me. I had total air so I folded. The next time I raised, he reraised me again and again I had to fold. The time after that he moved all in on me with no hesitation. Quit reraising me Jerk Face! At that point if I was going to play a hand it had to be one that could call a suspect all in reraise.

After those three hands the tables had turned a little bit. I was down to 50,000, Jerk Face was up to 95,000 and everyone else was under 15,000. Tough guys always say "I play for first" and generally that's what you should do, but in this case playing for 2nd was clearly the way to go.

Jerk Face was rolling over everyone and they were giving no resistance. While first place was just over $2,000 and that's what I was really shooting for, 2nd was almost $1,200 while 5th was only $500. My 3 short stacked opponents seemed committed to playing super tight and trying to move up one more spot.

I could stand up to Jerk Face with a hand that was better than average (like KJ or A9) since I knew he was on the "any two" track, or I could get blinded off a little and probably end up in 2nd place.

This was a rare situation where playing like a total pussy was actually the best way to go. I'm not saying I was folding premium hands, but I wasn't taking any chances. Just like clockwork, three of my opponent were ground down to a few big blinds, got their money in with Ax and went broke. By the time it was heads up I was down to 40,000 facing a stack of 160,000 which wasn't great, but anything can happen heads up. More importantly I had $1,150 locked up. I got it all in with A5 and lost to KJ, but I was still happy with the 2nd place. If I'd tried to be a tough guy I easily could have finished 4th or 5th and left a few hundred bucks on the table.

How It's Been Going

2010-10-12T11:06:00.001-07:00

I didn't quite hit my 500 SNG in a week goal, but I did play about 300 at the $60 level and 100 at the $38 level. I lost $350 at at the higher stakes and $650 at the lower.

This isn't a huge sample size, but I'm still losing confidence in this plan. Since my SNG rebirth I've played 608 tournaments at the $60 level and won $1,288 which is $2.12 per SNG. If you factor in the $997 I've earned in FPPs and other bonus I'm at almost $4 per. At 75 tournaments a day that's $300 a day or at least $6,000 a month.

That seems fine and it is. But I've having trouble trusting it. If you eliminate my first 100 tournaments (and look at the last 500 I've played) I'm only making 65 cents per. If you look at the last 400 I've played I'm losing 56 cents per.

Was I just running really hot in the beginning and now I'm performing at a level that I can expect long term or was I running a little above expectation at the start and a lot below it since?

I'm not really sure what to do. Should I keep plugging away? Should I drop down to the $24 level and just play an insane number of tournaments? Should I try switching to no limit cash games? Which site should I target? What about playing in person at the Oaks? Maybe I should try SNGs on other sites? Maybe I should just lay on the floor face down because I'm not sure I can handle any more losing? These are the thoughts that are rattling around my head all day every day.

To say it's stressful is a massive understatement. The major disadvantage I have over most of my competition is I'm supporting 3 people in Northern California. I can't just live cheap when things aren't going well. While my wife is doing a great job of supporting me however she can, I still have family obligations that get in the way of working all the time.

Part of me (a growing part) wishes we could just move to fucking Nebraska and work at a diner or something.

The other part of me says "Quit being such a pussy! Get back in there and kick some ass! Play better! Be Smarter! You can do it!"

So that's what I'm going to do. Let me see if I can break off 400 $38 tournaments between now and Saturday night. If I can make $3 per that will be $1,200. In the grand scheme of things that ain't much, but it's a start and right now I need some momentum. Also if I keep that goal in the forefront of my mind it will help me from getting overwhelmed. If I can get all my focus on hitting those targets maybe I can block out the panic that I'm constantly swallowing down and play my best.

500 SNG's This Week

2010-10-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

I am believer in goals. I set goals all the time and even when I don't meet them (which to be honest is more often than not) I still make more progress than if I hadn't set any goals at all.

My current short term goal is to play 500 single table sit-n-go (SNG's) tournaments between Monday morning and Saturday night. More specifically I am going to play 100 $38 buy in 9 handed SNGs and 400 $60 buy in 9 handed SNGs all on pokerstars.

There is a good reason for this split - the Battle of the Planets leader board! Pokerstars SNG leader board is split into 8 divisions (all named for planets) based on stakes with each division having a "high orbit" and a "low orbit leader board". I'll briefly try to explain how it works.

Every time you finish in the money in an SNG you score points - for 9 handed SNGs it's 45 points for first, 27 for second and 18 for third. The low orbit leader board involves blocks of 20 tournaments and the high orbit leader board uses block of 100. Tournaments 1-20, 21-40, 41-60 etc. will be grouped together as will tournaments 1-100, 101-200, 201-300 etc. Only your first five blocks count for the low orbit leader board, but you can have as many blocks as you like for the high orbit.

Is this all for pride and glory? Of course not! It's for cash! In the "Uranus" division, (where the $60 tournaments fall) the top 15 scores of the week in the high orbit and the top 15 scores in the low orbit pay with 1st place of $1,000 and 15th place of $80 with everything else in between (it's much more of a linear payout schedule than a normal tournament - 2nd place is $700, 3rd is $500 etc.). In the Neptune division (where the $38 tournaments fall) 20 places pay with 1st place being $900 and 20th paying $60. I'm planning to play 100 $38 tournaments so I can have the maximum number of low orbit blocks and one high orbit blick.

Of course it's not easy to win one of these leader boards with all of the players out there, but I expect to make some significant money out of this. Even if it's $80 or $100 a week on average that adds a lot to my bottom line over the course of the month and the year.

Maybe as important, this keeps me motivated. I want to win one of these leader boards! Last week I finished in 11th on the Uranus High orbit leader board which paid $80. This week I want to hit a top ten. I'll let you know how it goes.

WCOOP Final Thoughts and MORE!

2010-10-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

The 2010 WCOOP came at kind of a bad time. I would have liked to play more events, but in the midst of the worst downswing on my poker life taking shots at a big payday didn't seem like the smartest move.

In the end I played 14 events and had 4 cashes which isn't too bad. Unfortunately it's not about having a good percentage of cashes, it's about hitting that one big one. I also went 0 for 2 in satellites and 0 fo 1 in second chance tournaments.

When all was said and done my $5,000 bankroll was down to $3,760.

I don't expect to be doing much in terms of multitable tournaments, with the exception for occasionally playing the pokerstars Sunday Million or Sunday Warm up.

For now I'm on the SNG grind. I've been peppering absolute and pokerstars playing everything from $35 six handed hyper-turbos to 45 player $60 tournaments to $114 9 player SNGs. All in all I've played about 500 tournaments in the last week. My best results have been coming in the $60, 9 handed turbo SNG's on pokerstars. I've played 228 so far and won $1,863 which is $8.17 per tournament. Factor in another $1.50 per SNG in FPPs and other bonuses and we're talking big bucks if I can keep that rate up. This is actually a pretty small sample size, but it's still promising. We'll see how I'm doing after 2,000 and that should give me a more precise feel for my long term prospects.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

2010-09-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's much more fun for me to talk about the good news than the bad news, but bad news is a big part of playing poker. Simply put, September 2010 has been the worst month of my poker career.

August was a good month. In fact in the middle of August I went on a massive tear. I played about 10 full days over a two week stretch, won 9 of those days and banked $15,000 all in limit hold'em cash games. Maybe 10% of that money came from $30/$60, but the rest was all $10/$20 or $15/$30.

Just before that run I made the decision to play a little looser. Pokertableratings.com has a feature where you can look up a username and see how they do things compared to the top 10 winners on a given poker site at a given stakes. When I looked myself up I saw that I was playing slightly tighter than the top 10 winners at $10/$20 and $15/$30.

I didn't go nuts, but in every situation where it was close before the flop I called or raised instead of folding. Winning 600 or 700 big bets in 10 sessions is uncharted territory for me, but it was over the course of 15,000 hands and there are guys who make over 3 big bets per 100 hands long term. Of course those guys are the total killers, but it's possible and I was hoping I was playing better not just running crazy hot.

After taking my Absolute poker account from $5,000 to $20,000 in no time at all I was feeling as good as I have in a long while about my long term prospects of massive fortune.

Then it was as if a switch was flipped. All of a sudden I couldn't win no matter what. I didn't have a winning day from August 26th until September 14th. Every day$1,000 or $2,000 was evaporating from my account. I tried everything I could think of to give myself the best chance to win. I mixed in some days off, reread some of my best poker books, started playing at night when the games are better, played fewer games at a time and played smaller stakes. Nothing worked.

Here is a little story that is sort of a microcosm of my first two weeks of September. It is a story about THE WORST PLAYER IN ONLINE POKER! His name is CHUCK999. When I first looked him up he was losing $210,000 in 70,000 hands. That's bad, but not unheard of for high stakes players. This guy had lost that much playing $15/$30 and below! His most common stakes is $2/$4 where he's losing $58,000 in 28,000 hands! All in all he is losing FORTY SIX BIG BETS per 100 hands! That is totally off the charts.

To put it into perspective, if there is a player who is losing 5 BB/100 (that's $1 for every hand at $10/$20 - play 1,000 hands, lose $1,000) or more they are bad enough that they can make a game profitable all by themselves. If I'm up against someone who is a 10 BB/100 loser I won't leave the game until they go broke no matter who else is in it or what else I could be doing with my time. I've seen a few guys in the range of -15 BB/100, but they had all been blown up playing no limit. 99% of this guy's play is limit.

I'd been fortunate enough to play against this fellow for about an hour at $10/$20 and I knew I could never leave a game in which was playing. I'm mean N-E-V-E-R. If the house is on fire but the flames haven't reached my desk yet I'm going to keep playing.

Towards the end of the time that I'd been getting totally bombed every day I saw CHUCK999 was playing $15/$30 at a 4 handed table and there was a seat open. I DID NOT want to play 4 handed $15/$30. That's a volatile game and I was looking for stability, but I had to play.

I lost $1,000 in 7 minutes and then CHUCK999 left the table. FUCK! The thing about this guy is he was putting in 3 or 4 bets on the turn and the river with NOTHING! I don't mean over playing middle pair, I mean a pure bluff cap on the river with 6 high! So think about the kind of money you'd lose if for example he made two pair against you when you had top pair and then ON THE VERY NEXT HAND he made a straight against your over pair. Do you know how frustrating it is to have someone cap an 8 high gutshot draw on the turn when you have pocket kings and then hit it on the river? I do!

Losing $500 pots to thin draws always sucks. But getting crushed like this after not having a winning day for weeks hurts. That's the only way to describe it. It just hurts.

Trying to shift gears I started playing a little on pokerstars. I saw that they'd reworked the way they award VPPs and now it would be a little easier for me to earn rewards. The way it used to work is every time you were dealt into a hand where $1 was raked you earned one point, and if $2 or more was raked you got two points. Now for every $1 raked 5.5 points are awarded and split evenly between every player who is dealt into the hand (the count the rake and split the points down to the penny or the hundredth of a point).

After some experimentation I saw that I could earn points about 25% faster than before! That is a HUGE deal. I would mean I could make it to supernova elite with 75% of the effort I needed before. "This is great!" I thought. "I've found the solution!" I thought.

I played 10,000 hands of $5/$10 over three days and won about $1,000 (not counting the points and other rewards). Not earth shattering, but I felt like I could grind it out and pay the bills. Then I lost $1,000 a day three days in a row.

That might still be the answer, but for now I've shifted gears again trying to find something that works. The past few days I've been playing sit-n-go's. I've played about 15,000 SNGs in my career and it was what I did full time for maybe two years at the start of my career. 3 days into the experiment I'm about even, but I feel like the play is much worse than it was when I switched away from SNGs in 2006. My plan now is to play about 80 a day at the $55 level and make $3 per tournament. If I can do that, when you factor in the points or the rakeback I'll be able to make enough to pay the bills.

If that doesn't work, it might be time to start thinking about closing the door on poker as a career for a little while and moving on to the next chapter of my life.

In other news as a result of this massive horrible run I haven't been playing any WCOOP tournaments. But I will be playing the $215 NL hold'em event tomorrow which is the last day of the 2010 WCOOP.

WCOOP 5 Event Summary

2010-09-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

After my last post I've played 5 more WCOOP events: $265 Knockout, $109 8-game mixed games, $109 NL hold'em (10 minute levels), $215 limit hold'em, and $215 NL hold'em.

There isn't too much to say about this group. In 4 of the 5 I did no better than doubling my starting stack before getting busted.

But I did squeak into the money in the $109 NLH event. I used some major stalling and a little luck to make the money with a stack that was barely more than we started with. I went broke the first hand after the money bubble, but still got paid $200 for the cash.

After 10 events, 2 satellites, and 1 second chance tournament my $5,000 starting bankroll is at $4,208.

My next 3 events are $320 mixed hold'em (half limit/half NL) Tuesday at 10, $320 8-game mixed games Wednesday at 2, and $320 HORSE Saturday at 2. These are all in my wheelhouse and I'm hoping for at least one strong showing.

WCOOP Update

2010-09-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

I've missed a few recaps, but I'll get to them tomorrow. Stay Classy.

WCOOP #11 ($320 Ante up) Recap

2010-09-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

The way this tournament structure works is the blinds stay at 5/5 for the entire tournament (effectively no blinds) while the antes (which start from hand 1) increase.

The reason I LOVE this structure is that half the players seem totally unable to use their brains. By level 5 (still in the early stages) the antes are 50 per player per hand. That means that there is 460 in the pot before any action has taken place. If you call the 5 chips preflop even at a crazy aggressive table you have a shot at winning those chips.

I'd say 1/3 of the time we were taking the flop with no raise. You'd think with those kind of pot odds everyone would call the 5 chips and see as many flops as possible.

Even when the antes added up to thousands of chips in the pot, maybe half the players at my tables were folding for 5 chips before the flop! This tournament was one of the two or three I was most looking forward to because I remember it from last year (I went a little deep in the money then) and they only run tournaments with this structure a few times a year.

We started with 1,789 entrants with 5,000 chips each and I got off to a crazy good start. I turned a set of aces against a set of nines and took out one player and then flopped top set against TWO players who went nutso with draws. About 2 hours into the tournament I was in 1st place with 30,000 chips and 1,000 players left.

I felt sure I would just cruise into the money, but then I hit a major speed bump. I came in for a raise with A5 of hearts. The antes were 100 a player and I made it 600 to go. The big blind who had 17,000 chips to my 27,000 (both big stacks) called and the flop came down 9 8 6 with two hearts.

My opponent checked and I bet 1,500 into the 2,100 chip pot with my flush draw- gutshot-overcard. He took it to 4,500 and I figured he probably paired the 9. Thinking if he didn't have more than one pair and knowing I'd have outs no matter what he had I dropped the all in bomb without hesitation. He called with surprising speed.

When the hands got turned over I saw that he had 78 of hearts. For a split second I thought "Ah ha! He has a worse flush draw!" But then I saw he had a pair too (and a straight draw). The turn and river were both bricks and I was down to 10,000.

But from there I went on a run. By this point I was seeing maybe 40% of the flops for 5 chips and shooting out half pot sized bets which were bringing home the antes with shocking frequency.

I had my stack all the way back up to 39,000 when someone got KK vs my AA! That monster took me to 75,000, put me into the money and had me in 25th place with 225 players left.

I got it up to 120,000 as we made it down to 100 players and I was starting to think about the final table. Then I had three hands go against me.

On the first hand I raise with QJ, got two callers and the flop came down jack high with two hearts. I bet about 2/3 of the pot and got one caller. The turn was an ace (YUCK!) and we both checked. The river was the jack of hearts, I checked, called a 3/4 pot sized bet and lost to a flush. That might sound like a pretty pedestrian pot, but that late in a tournament losing one at showdown meant it was a huge pot.

A few hands later I got dealt KK and just called a preflop raise. The flop came down ace high and the preflop raiser check raised me all in on the flop. Yuck again!

That took me down to 60,000, but I chopped out a few small pots and was on my way back up with close to 80,000 when I made some very questionable decisions.

I got dealt AT suited in early position, the antes were 800 each (meaning 7,200 chips in the pot) and the player to my right raised to 4,000. I thought about folding or reraising both of which would have been better than what I did, which was just call.

A third player called behind and we took the flop which came down J T 4 with two spades. There was close to 20K in the pot and after the original raiser checked I bet out 14K. The other player called and the original raiser folded.

Here is here things got dicey. The turn was a blank and I was faced with a tough decision. There was 50K in the pot and I had about 55K left. I could either check and give up on the pot (my opponent had a solid stack and I was all but sure he'd fire if I checked) or go for it and move all in.

I thought for a few seconds and for some reason I decided my opponent was on a draw with either two spades or KQ. So I moved all in and got instacalled by AJ. No ten on the river and that was it.

I finished 72nd which paid $1,153. Certainly not a bad result, but I was hoping for more.

Meanwhile I played the $215 ante up second chance. It had the same structure as event #11 and had about 500 players. I got off to a good start doubling my starting stack, but I didn't do anything beyond that.

Also in WCOOP Event #12 $215 heads up matches, I won my first match, be went down the tubes in the second.

WCOOP Update

2010-09-08T12:42:00.001-07:00

I am rolling in the WCOOP ante up tournament. Almost 2 hours in an I'm in first place overall with 30,000 chips up from 5,000 to start.

I'll be playing the $215 buy in ante up second chance tournament at 1. I love this format!

I just wanted to remind those of you who have a piece of my action that you will have a piece of this and any other second chance WCOOP tournament or WCOOP satellites.

Also I have heads up matches at 2. Busy WCOOP day!

WCOOP Event #5 ($320 6-max shootout) Recap

2010-09-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

This event was on my "maybe" list when I first saw the WCOOP schedule, but when the time came I decided to play.

For those of you who don't know what a "shootout" is, the way it works is you start with a table of players and they play until just one is left. Then that player moves on to the next round where everyone at the second table is a winner from the first round and so on.

In this case we started with 1296 players split into 216 table of six. The 216 players who won their first table were then put at 36 tables. The 36 winners of those second round tables were put at six tables and the winner of those tables came together at the final table.

We started with 5,000 chips, 20 minute levels and blinds of 25/50. I caught my first big break when I got dealt K7 suited in the big blind and called the small blind's raise. It turned out that he had K6 and the flop came down K 7 6! It's pretty hard to screw a hand like this and when the dust cleared I had 12,300 chips.

A little while later I took AQ up against A8 and despite an 8 on the flop I took down the pot and had a commanding lead of 17,000 chips to my opponent's stacks of 9,000 and 4,000.

By this time the blinds were all the way up to 40/80! There was zero blind pressure and I did my best to stay patient and wait for really good spots to get my chips in.

By the time we got to heads up I had a 21,000 to 9,000 chip advantage and it didn't take long for me to stick it to my opponent.

On the 175th hand of round 1 I raised to 240 with A2, my opponent reraised to 560 and I just called. The flop came down 2 2 7 - BINGO! I was expecting my opponent to bet and I wasn't sure if I should put in a raise on the flop or wait for the turn. To my surprise he checked and I decided to check behind him. The turn was the ten of spades putting two spades on the board and again my opponent checked.

I thought there was a chance he had a hand like KK and was really slow playing it hard (if that is a thing you can do hard). If I was going to have any chance of getting his whole stack I needed to bet now and build the pot. I made a pot sized bet and to my delight my opponent moved all in! When he turned over his hand he showed KQ of spades meaning he had 7 outs, but he missed and I was on to round 2!

Winning my first table was worth $637. At the second table the only thing that mattered was winning since 6th place though 2nd place all paid the same amount. 1st place however was worth just north of $2,700 plus the chance to play at another table where winning would be worth at least $9,600.

At my second table I got off to another great start. Again we started with the same structure - 6 players with 5,000 chips and blinds of 25/50. Early on I took A9 up against AK, the flop came down A 9 7, and I doubled up. A little later I took down a player who made a huge all in raise with K2 on a king high flop. I almost folded, but decided to call with my KQ. After winning that one I had 13,000 chips.

At my peak I had 15,000 chips against stacks of 13,000 and 2,000. But the guy with 2,000 made a comeback and I slipped big time.

The critical hand came after we'd been playing 3 handed for over 100 hands. I was in the small blind with 55 and the button raised to 300. I made it 900 to go and he moved all in for 5,500. I had about 7,500 when the hand started so I'd be left with 2,000 if I called and lost. Normally I'd fold 55 in a heartbeat here, but this was the 4th consecutive time that this guy hand moved all in on me when I reraised him. I'd folded the previous three times and I felt like it was time to take a stand.

When the cards got turned over he had KT and flopped a king. My last 2,000 chips went out the door two hands later when I got them in with AT against AK.

I'm happy to have an early cash under my belt, but I really felt like I was on my way to winning the second round. I just didn't quite get the job done.

$637 is better than a kick in the nuts as they say. Back in action tomorrow with $320 ante up!

WCOOP Event #1 Recap

2010-09-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

Event #1 was $215 no limit hold'em 6 handed. We started with 10,000 chips, 9,001 entrants and a first place of $270,000.

The first hour was very tame, but in the second hour I got jobbed. The blinds were 50/100 and I raised to 250 from the button with 22. I'd raised from the button twice in the recent past and both times the big blind hand made it 800 to go. This time was no different and he made it exactly 800 again.

My opponent had about 6,000 chips and I had 9,000 so if I put him to the test and lost I wouldn't be elimnated. I decided to make a strong play and put him all in. He instantly called me with A6 offsuit. Huh? I was 53% to win before the flop, but after an ace came on the flop I was toast.

This is a situation where if I'd seen his cards after he reraised me I would have played it exactly the same way. What a terrible call!

A little while later I found some more marginal bad luck. I had about 3,000 chips, the blinds were 75/150 and I raised to 450 with KQ. I got one caller (the same guy from the hand above) and the big blind moved all in for about 2,000. I went all in over the top and got called by my nemisis. When the hands got turned over I was in great shape finding myself again the T8 suited and JT suited. What the fuck were these clowns thinking?

I was 48% to win the pot before the flop, but JT flopped a flush and that was it.

None of the plays I made that did me in were slam dunk correct, but I'm happy with how I played.

I'm skipping event #3 and will be back in action with event #5 $320 6-max NL shootout on Monday at 2.

WCOOP Goals

2010-09-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

In some ways poker is a pursuit that lends itself to goals, and in other ways not so much.

Goals like "I'm going to put in X number of hours (or hands) this month" or "I'm going to play within my bankroll" are great and important. But saying "I'm going to win $10,000 this month" or "I'm going to make a final table this week" are not helpful or productive.

If you make significantly better decisions than your opponents in the long run you'll come out ahead. But no matter how well you play terrible shit is going to happen to you at the poker table. Terrible, miserable punishment that will make you shout out "Why?! Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this torture?" Crushing defeat that makes it feel like you're going to puke out your vital organs all over the felt or your keyboard (depending on where you are). Fiery, demented pain that...well you get what I'm saying.

While I'm hoping this will be my best WCOOP ever, and I'm as prepared as I've ever been, I won't be shocked or crushed if I get my doors blown off.

With all that said, I should have 20 shots to do something special. If I can find 5 cashes in there or 1 final table I'll be happy and consider the series a success. But my goals are to take it one hand at a time, take what the table gives me, and make the best decisions that I am capable of making at every turn.

The action starts Sunday at 10 am. Maybe the universe will smile on me and I'll just smash everyone's face in all day long and win the first event. It could happen.

WCOOP 2010!

2010-08-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

The World Championship of Online Poker is back! The 2010 edition of the WCOOP will feature 62 events over 23 days with $50,000,000 in guaranteed prize money! What the WSOP is to live tournaments, the WCOOP is to online tournaments. This is the biggest thing in online poker.

I've had solid success in the WCOOP in the past. There have been 166 events since the WCOOP started in 2002 (they add more every year) and last year there were over 45,000 unique users from over 100 countries who played at least one event. I'm not sure how many events I've played, but I think it's about 75. I do know, however, that I'm 29th all time in WCOOP cashes with 17. That's pretty cool for a series of tournaments this big.

This year, I'm going small relative to years past. Usually I take $10,000 or $15,000 and go for the gusto. But since I haven't done shit in a tournament with a buy in over $200 in recent memory I'm going to take it easy and go in with a $5,000 bankroll.

That's enough for me to play 16 events if I get totally blanked and more likely 20-25. Hopefully I can have a few solid cashes or one final table early and then really go for it.

Here is my schedule for the first week (all times are pacific):

Event #1 9/5 10 am, $215 NLH 6-max ($1.25M Guaranteed prize pool)
Event #3 9/5 2 pm $215 NLH ($2M guaranteed prize pool)
Event #5 9/6 2 pm $320 6-max shootout
Event #11 9/8 11 am $215 NLH "Ante up"
Event #12 9/8 2 pm $215 Heads up matches
Event #14 9/9 11 am $265 NLH 6-max knockout ($50 bounties)
Event #18 9/10 5 pm $109 8-game mixed games (10 minute levels)
Event #19 9/11 10 am $109 NLH (10 minute levels)
Event #20 9/11 2 pm $215 Limit hold'em

Here is the full schedule if you want to check out all of the events.

Hopefully this will be the year I knock one out of the park and have a six figure score.

Equity Comments

2010-08-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

After my drubbing at the hands of mental midgets in L.A. I made some remarks about the equity I'd generated in a few of the tournaments. Afterwards there was feverish debate in the comments section of my blog!

Actually there were only two comments, but they were both great (amazingly no one called me a pussy in either of them!) and deserving of a response.

Here are the comments:

Before I say my comment, I'd like you to know I enjoy your blog. It is entertaining and sometimes informative, so please don't stop what you are doing based on a negative comment or two.

I feel like you put too much emphasis on the "Equity" of your chips at a certain stage. The reality is everyone has a similar equity, but only ~10 actually realize some of it and cash. And, nobody ever gets the equity of what their chips were worth. When you bust in the money and had an average stack (call it 12x buy in), you still probably only get 2x your buy-in back. When you get all the chips in the tournament, you still only get the top prize (call it 20% of the prize pool).

What I'm trying to say is, you will always feel like you are running below expectation if you look at that. I don't know specifically what you should look at, but I know that isn't it.

Here is the second one:

"Actually dollar value and chip value usually correspond pretty well throughout the middle portion of MTTs. for example, when playing cashout tournaments, the best EV option is to only rarely cashout for dollar value.
you're right, though, that toward the end, like the final table, chip values and dollar values won't correspond- larger stacks will represent inflated EV, and shorter stacks will underestimate EV."

btw i enjoy the blog-

I agree with both of you. If you have 1% of the chips and no money has been paid out then those chips are worth 1% of whatever is in the prize pool, but that's not really what you should be focused on.

First of all, if you start looking at the equity of the chips you had at your maximum for every tournament you'll convince yourself that you must be the unluckiest person in the world. The frequency with which you double or triple your starting stack is not even close to the frequency that you'll end up doubling or tripling your money.

Also just because you have what it takes to accumulate some chips early on doesn't mean you have what it takes to be a long term winner in tournaments. Plenty of players have no trouble in the early stages and then get nervous when they get close to the money. The give up clear advantages to avoid the risk of going broke and in the end kill their long term chances of profit. The same thing happens to an every greater degree at the final table where players use the lowest risk tactics, instead of the best ones.

I only mentioned the equity I'd generated in the L.A. tournaments because I was trying to think of the best way to quantify that I'd actually played really well in the L.A. tournaments even though I had nothing to show for it.

Thanks again for the comments!

Also briefly to Luis, I don't expect to go for Supernova Elite on Pokerstars next year. The effort required is more than I'm willing to put in, and I've found the limit games on other sites, to be for the most part, a little (or a lot) softer. I do miss playing on pokerstars though. Their software, service, and game selection is by far the best, but the profit margins are not there.

$216 FTOPS PLO/PLH Recap

2010-08-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

I played well in this event right up until the end where I made a rash decision.

We were down to about 220 players with 120 spots paying and blinds of 300/600. I had 15,000 chips (average was about 25,000) and was in the big blind. The small blind had about 40,000 and 100% of the time that it was folded to him when he was in the small blind or on the button he'd raised.

So when it was folded to him the the small blind of course he made it 1,800 to go. At this point I had his range being all 169 possible combinations of two cards. I got dealt K9 so I made it 5,400 to go.

Up to that point everything is good. But when he put me all in I should have folded. I'd be leaving myself with 17 big blinds which was plenty to continue. But I got too attached to my initial read that my opponent was full of shit. I was looking at that pot and thinking that I was getting 2 to 1 on my money when I was probably a 3 to 2 underdog (like I would be against Ax) or maybe 55/45 (like I would be against a small pair).

The problem is there is no way for me to ahead at this point unless I'm against a 4 bet pure bluff. It's a recipe for disaster to put an opponent on a total bluff like that. I didn't need to make the "hero call" here. I'm sure I could have found a better place to get my money in the pot.

In the end my opponent rolled over AK flopped an ace and that was it. This felt like another wasted opportunity.

FTOPS Briefly

2010-08-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be taking a few shots at the tournaments in FTOP 17.

$216 Half PLO half PL hold'em is underway and I have my 5,000 chip starting stack up to 8,000.

The rest of my schedule is $216 7-game on wednesday at 11, $216 cashout NLH on Thursday at 3, $216 NL 6-max Friday at 11 (hosted by Joe "The Elegance" Beevers) and $216 limit rush friday at 3.

I'll make sure to recap if something interesting happens.

L.A. Misery

2010-08-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm home now and finally after many delays ready to give a synopsis on my 6 tournaments at the Bike.

The first was a $335 re-entry tournament. There were four "day 1s" for this event and if you played day 1A and went broke you could try again on day 1B, 1C, or 1D. I ended up playing on day 1D and on that day alone with had almost 600 entrants. In total I think there were 1,500 or so paid entries and a first place prize of $130,000!

We started with 8,000 and I ran my starting stack all the way up to 40,000 before I had two hands go against me. On the first I got a little frisky and it didn't work out. The blinds were 500/1,000 with a 200 ante and I was in the big blind. We took the flop 4 way and it came down A 2 8. After 3 checks the last player to act bet 4,000. I thought there was a fair chance this was total bullshit and I felt like he was a player who could fold a hand as good as a weak ace so I made it 11,000 to go with total air. Before my chips were out of my hand he was all in for 25,000. I folded and he rolled over a set of deuces.

Some time later I was down to about 18,000 chips and the blinds were 800/1,600. Again there were three callers in front of me and I was in the big blind. With the antes there was about 9,000 in the pot and I thought there was very little chance I get called so I moved all in with 34s. Shockingly the second preflop limper had JJ and I was out. I finished about 100th of 600ish needing to get to the top 28 to make day 2.

The equity of those 40,000 chips was $1,500, but I couldn't turn that equity into cash.

The next event was $225 shootout. The structure was pretty fast and I got TT when the big blind had AA. Not much to do there, but go broke. Interestingly I'm 99% sure the guy who busted me was Bill Fagerbakke who played "Dauber" on the TV show Coach.

Later that same day I played $275 NLH with $50 bounties. 10 minutes in I made a set vs top pair and doubled up (I just missed the bounty leaving my opponent with 500 chips). Later in the tournament I picked up one bounty when I busted a short stack, but never really got anything going.

The next day should have been a good one for me. At 1 pm was 6 handed no limit and then at 6 pm was HORSE. Again we started with 8,000 chips, I played great and ran my stack up to 37,000 at my peak.

Then I had three hands go against me. On the first I had QQ and lost about 15K chips to KK. On the second I raised with JJ, got called by Q6 suited, all the money went in on the flop (he flopped a flush draw) and the river was a queen. Finally I had 77, raised under the gun, got called by the player to my left who had A2, and the flop came three aces. Annoying!

The equity of those 37,000 chips was $925, but I couldn't turn that equity into cash.

The HORSE tournament was the hardest loss to take. We started with 160 players and I finished 23rd. We started this one with 5,000 chips and at a time when the average stack was 18,000 I had a chance to scoop a pot that was 70,000 chips. We were playing stud hi-lo and I made an ace high flush and a 7 5 3 2 A low, but the guy who lost his mind with trips and no low made a full house and I got half.

That still put me with 35,000 chips and twice average, but I couldn't get the job done. On my final hand I made trips (playing Stud), got it all in by 6th street and at that point my opponent had a straight draw and a flush draw. I think I was about a 3 to 1 favorite to win a 35,000 chip pot and be above average very close to the money, but he hit and I missed.

Between the 6-max and trhe HORSE I played from 1 in the afternoon to 3 in the morning with no more than a 10 minute break every 2 hours. It was not easy, and it sucked to put in all that effort and lose $500. I did get to spend a few hours playing against Laker's owner Jerry Buss who is an avid poker player and is clearly playing because he enjoys it, not for the money.

The equity of the 35,000 chips I had at my best in the HORSE was $1,400, but I couldn't turn that equity into cash.

My final tournament was another $335 re-entry. Again I doubled my starting stack of 8,000 to 16,000, but didn't get the breaks I needed when the stakes got big.

The total damage for my trip was -$1,620.

I have to say I'd give the people who ran the tournament a C-. Every time a floorman was called to make a decision they seemed like an idiot who took forever to grasp the situation. Also once I saw a decision that was flat out wrong.

Another thing I didn't like was the juice. I everyone one of these tournaments the juice was more than 10%. Then on top of that for an extra $10 (that went to the staff as a tip) you could get an extra 2,000 chips. So for $335 you could get 6,000 chips or for $345 you could get $8,000. What a fat pile of shit. If you're going to make the juice 15% and give some of it to the staff, fine, but don't make it seem like there is a choice to be made.

Actually, not fine. 15% juice is fucking ridiculous. If you can't run a $300 tournament unless you make it 15% juice, make it a $500 tournament with 10% juice.

I also managed to drop $3,000 playing online while I was there and bricked in a $535 FTOPS HORSE event (with 7% juice - just for comparison). I was not a profitable week.

A Comment Response

2010-08-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Someone put a nasty comment on one of my posts asking how I could be down $33,000 on pokerstars and still call myself a pro poker player. While I'm not going to post the comment I am going to address the issue.

It's true that if you look up Acesedai on pokertableratings.com it will show that since August 2008 when they started tracking me I'm a substantial loser in the game play. But that is a small part of the story. It also says that I've played 465,000 hands.

That many hands earned me about 700,000 VPPs. I was supernova for about half those hands and supernova elite for the other half so that's about 3,000,000 FPPs. Those FPPs are worth $48,000. Also pokerstars has milestone bonuses. I won't go through the specifics, but I made more than $25,000 in milestone bonuses during that stretch. Then there's the supernove elite year end bonus which was $30,000 in free tournament entries.

The long and short of it is I sacrificed profit in the games, played many games at a time and many hours to get all the FPPs and bonues. It's not glamorous, but it's money.

Let's not forget that I have accounts at 6 different poker websites and use them all.

Also this doesn't take into account the fat pile of money I made playing tournaments, during this stretch. All you have to do is read my blog and you can find out about the 20 wins I've had in my career of over $10,000.

Also none of the money I've made playing in person shows up in anyway
.
Look up Patrik Antonius and you'll find him losing 2.6 million on fulltilt, but he's one of the top 50 players in the world. As of a month ago Daniel Negranu was losing $300,000 on pokerstars and he is also one of the most famous and successful players in the world. No database takes everything into account.

So that is how I can be "down $33,000 on pokerstars" and call myself a poker pro.

L.A. Update Coming

2010-08-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

I've been busy playing tournaments here in the L.A. area. I haven't been doing great, but I have been busy. I don't have anything planned for tomorrow so I'll be recaping all the action then.

Legends of Poker

2010-07-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving tomorrow for a mix of vacation and poker in Southern California. The poker will be playing a half dozen tournaments in the "Legends of Poker" series at The Bicycle Casino.

Here is my schedule:

7/31 6 pm $335 "re-entry" NL hold'em
8/2 1 pm $225 NL hold'em shootout
8/2 6 pm $275 NL hold'em with $50 bounties
8/3 1 pm $225 NL hold'em 6 handed
8/3 6 pm $225 HORSE
8/4 6 pm $330 NL hold'em Deep stack
8/6 6 pm $335 "re-entry" NL hold'em
8/7 6 pm $335 "re-entry" NL hold'em

The re-entry tournaments are interesting. The first one on my schedule is actually day 1D of a massive tournament where if you bust out you can reenter. Day 1A was yesterday, 1B is today, and 1C is tomorrow. If you go broke on any of those days you can try again the next day. And if you go broke before a certain level you can try again the same day.

The last two tournaments on my schedule are the same (In fact they are days 1A and 1B). If I don't make it through day 1A, I'll try again on day 1B. Hopefully I won't have to fire too many bullets in these and can get into a tournament with a huge prize pool for not to much cash.

The other tournaments are pretty standard, but I'm looking forward to playing a field that should be almost all amateurs rather than the fields of all pros at the WSOP. I'm sure my online hourly rate is higher than my expected hourly rate in these tournaments, but they should be enjoyable and if nothing else I'm looking at this as a training exercise.

If I can find two deep cashes or one final table the series will be a solid success.

I'll be tweeting updates on every break so you can follow the action as it happens.

The FTOPS starts on August 4th so that will be intertwined with the LOP action, but I'll post more on that later.

An Interesting Article

2010-07-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently someone has succeeded in using "bots" - computer programs that make all the decisions - to beat some of the small stakes games on pokerstars. It looks like the jig is up now though. It also seems like they did a shitty job with the tactics based on some of the moves they had the bots make.

Here is the full story.

I talked to a guy in Vegas once who had created a bot and tried it out. He said he let it run for about 8 hours in three $.02/$.04 cent limit games. At the end it was ahead a total of about $30 which is 750 big bets! That would be $15,000 at $10/$20! He said they caught him the next day and closed his account.

I'm sure there are some other bots out there, but for the most part, I'm not worried about them getting the best of me. And even if I knew for 100% sure that there were lots of the most advanced bots constantly playing in the exact games I play, it wouldn't stop me from playing since I'm winning anyway.

Legends of Poker, FTOPS, and UBOC

2010-07-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

August is going to be a busy month for me.

At the start of the month I'm going to spend a week in southern California with plans to play 7 or 8 tournaments in the "Legends of Poker" series at the Bicycle Casino. All of the tournaments are in the $225-$330 range so we're not talking life changing stakes, but there will still be some significant cash on the line . Also I'm looking forward to playing some live tournaments without the massive pressure of the WSOP.

Starting Aug 4th the 17th version of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series kicks off. Looking at the schedule there are 10 events that look playable to me with buy ins ranging from $216 to $640.

Finally starting on August 18th is the Ultimate Bet Online Championship. I'm likely to play another 9 or 10 events in this series with buy ins ranging from $162 to $1,050.

All of this tournament action will if nothing else lead to a boat load of blog posts in August. More details later.

A Drunken Final Table

2010-07-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

When I came back from the WSOP I spent some time neglecting my cash games and instead playing multitable tournaments. In Vegas it took me 7 playing days to play 4 tournaments. But back at home base I could play 10 (or more) in a day with little difficulty. It was very hard to resist and I was salivating thinking about winning something outright or at least going deep.

But after a bunch of bricks I instead moved my focus back to cash games. There's nothing sexy about $15/$30 limit hold'em, but it pays the bills and that is always the primary goal for me.

In order to get my multitable fix a few time recently I found myself playing multitables recreationaly. Almost all of my playing is at my desktop with my 30 inch monitor and no distractions. It's serious business and requires maximum focus. When I say recreational I mean smaller stakes, in front of the TV on my laptop, with a beer or a glass of wine.

On Friday I spent the morning playing tennis and the early afternoon at a movie. I banged out about 500 hands of cash games in the late afternoon and even though I intended to play 2 or 3 times that much, I hit and ran when I found myself up $1,500.

That night seemed the perfect time for some recreational play. At 7:45 I jumped into a $33 with rebuys towards the end of the rebuy period on Absolute and shortly after I was in two $75 tournaments on Full Tilt and a $77 6-max NL on pokerstars. That is also when I started drinking.

When I first started playing online in 2004 it was not unusual for me to have a drink or two or three when I was playing. But it became perfectly clear in no time at all that it was affecting my results. I felt like I was making the same decisions, but clearly I wasn't. After this realization, I had a span of years in the middle of my career where I never had a drop of alcohol while I was playing.

While it's certainly not optimal, after a few million hands and a thousands of tournaments (ten of thousands if you count sit-n-go's), a few drinks doesn't throw me off like it used to. I guess I'd say it takes my "A' game out of play, but usually I'm still capable of my "B" game.

Fast forward a few hours into my story and I'm still in the the $33 with rebuys. We started with about 175 players and 18 spots paid. I made the money with more than twice an average stack.

This was the ultimate no fear situation. I was up $1,500 on the day in the cash games, I'd been drinking for 3 or 4 hours, and while 1st place was just over $4,500, 9th was less than $300. This was a situation where I was not fucking around. I was going for the top.

On the other hand my opponents went into full blown pussy mode. I was raising at least 50% of the hands that were folded to me and getting away with it. Soon I was in the tournament chip lead. If someone played a hand and didn't move all in, I was frequently reraising no matter what my cards looked like.

There really weren't many big hands to speak of, because on so many pots my cards didn't matter. From the time we made the money until the end I never had more than half my stack in the pot.

The biggest break I got was playing 3 handed when I called a massive all in with 99 and beat AQ. When we started heads up play I had 600,000 chips to my opponents 300,000. After 10 or 15 hands I knew it would take a massive run of bad luck to lose against this guy. He was clearly nervous and I quickly ground him down to under 200K. On the final hand I reraised him all in with KJ suited, he called with A5 and I made a flush.

Like I said 1st place was little over $4,500!

At the same time I was also in a $55 tournament that started at 9:00 with 236 players. I made the final table of that one too. The first tournament wrapped up at about 12:30, but this one lasted until 2 am. I can't say I recall many of the details, but I know I finished 3rd which paid about $1,200.

All together it was about a $7,000 day!

Reflecting on the 2010 WSOP

2010-06-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm a big sports fan. With the odd exception of sports that involve goals (specifically hockey and soccer), I love it all. While most of my favorite players are big names, I certainly find myself rooting for the underdog more often than not.

In the past week two unknown players have had maybe their greatest moments on the big stage. In the U.S. open a Frenchman named Havret who was ranked 391st in the world had a chance to win on the last few holes. In the end a top 20 player came through (like they usually do) and won the tournament.

In tennis 148th ranked Nicholas Mahut was part of the longest tennis match in professional history, lasting more than 11 hours over the span of three days (the match was stopped because of darkness twice!). It was just a second round match in a tournament with 128 players and Mahut was unable to outlast his opponent. But he was still part of the biggest story at Wimbledon this year and part of a match that will be remembered for years to come.

How do you think those guys feel right now? They can't feel bad. But I'm sure playing a practice round to get ready for the next cookie cutter golf tournament or hitting backhands to gear up for some second rate tennis event is not enough the get the juices flowing for these guys.

That's a little bit how I feel right now. I got relatively close to something special at this years WSOP. I was a long way from winning an event, but making day 2 three times I wasn't that far from making a final table which in and of itself is a big deal.

More to the point it was 9 days where I was part of something big and the chance of something big happening was right there, just out of my grasp. It was exhausting, but exhilarating.

When the time came to head home, I was more than ready. I missed my family desperately and my day to day life is great on just about every level. But it's not so easy to step out of the bright lights and just snap back into the normal routine.

I'm sure that Havret and Mahut are already thinking about next year (or the next major). And however hard I try, I can't help but do the same.

WSOP Main Event Satellites

2010-06-20T14:27:00.001-07:00

I'm in a $370 Satellite on Pokerstars and a $530 Satellite on AP. They're both about an hour into the action and I'm off to a good start in both. Check twitter (dave_huff) for live updates. Or if you want to watch I'm acesedai on Pokerstars and acessedai on Absolute.

2010 WSOP Final Thoughts

2010-06-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

I ended up making a small profit of about $800 in the 2010 WSOP, but that was more than eaten up by the expense of 10 days in Vegas.

Even still this year was a success. I played better than I ever have at the WSOP and I made it to day 2 in three of the four tournaments I entered. While it would have been great to catch one or two more breaks and go a little (or a lot) deeper I'll have nothing but good memories of the tournaments I played.

I think I also got a small confidence boost from how well I played against the strongest competition. I got the best of a few world class players and instead of thinking I have what it takes to make a final table or win an event, I know I have what it takes.

I now have 6 WSOP cashes on my resume and I'm already looking forward to next year.

In the mean time I'm going to take a few shots to qualify for the main event. I'll be playing a $700 and a $370 qualifier on pokerstars and a $530 on Absolute over the weekend. If I can catch a few breaks my 2010 WSOP might not be over just yet!

WSOP $1,500 HORSE Day 2 Recap

2010-06-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

As per usual, I find myself a little blogged out at the end of a series of tournament that required tons of blogging. As a result I'm going to make this quick.

I got off to a terrible start on Day 2, despite being at a great table. I had 19,000 when I looked at my first hand of the day and at the end of that hand I had about 14,000. Not what I was hoping for!

It was all down hill from there. I won a few small pots here and there, but after close to two hours I was down to 5,000 chips playing Omaha with 400/800 blinds. On my final hand I found myself all in on the turn. Another player was also all in and when the two of us and a third player turned up our cards I saw that if I could hit a heart (any heart - amazingly there was no low draw and neither of my opponents had a full house draw that would be completed by a heart) I would scoop the entire 20,000 chip pot. A black river card put an end to my tournament.

I finished about 170th of 827.

WSOP $1,500 HORSE Day 1 Recap

2010-06-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

We started this $1,500 HORSE tournament with 824 players each with 4,500 chips. This is a ton of players for a HORSE tournament!

Looking around many of the top pros were mixed into the field, but there were also a slew of older players who tend to be much weaker than the players in their 20's and 30's. Why is that? We'll when you're 22 and you have no one but yourself to take care of, you have roommates, and can live on the cheap it's easy to get into playing poker for a living (like I did). But when you're 55 and you have kids in college, a house and a car payment, it's always just going to be a hobby.

Of course there are plenty of online no limit hotshots who don't know shit about playing HORSE who are even better to play against, but also a little more volatile.

I got off to very slow start in this one. I was between 2,500 and 3,500 chips for pretty much the first 4 hours of play. I won a few split pots during that time, but no big pots or even significant pots at all.

After the dinner break we started level 5 and during levels 5 and 6 I made up for the first 4. By the even of level 6 I was up to 12,000. A few minutes into level 7 I was up to 16,000. Average at that point was about 7k or 8k so I was really liking my chances.

Then I went stone cold. I couldn't make anything and of course the stakes kept getting higher. The end of level 8 which would mark the end of day 1 was looming and I thought the worst thing would be to make it to day 2, but have almost no chips. My plan was to fly home Thursday afternoon and another day in Vegas would mean added expense and more time away from my family who I'm missing like crazy right now.

At the same time if I had 4,500 chips they were still worth $1,500 and even if I had 2,250 (an amount I could get all in before the flop) the were worth $750. That's not the kind of money you want to just throw away, but I was in go for it mode as we approached the end of day 1.

I found myself with 3,500 chips playing hold'em (the H of the HORSE) with the blinds at 300/500 (stakes of 500/1,000) and I picked up 22 in middle position. Normally I would fold here, but I knew at most we'd be looking at 5 or 6 more hands before the end of the day.

So I raised, got reraised, the big blind came along and I made it 4 bets. Now 2,000 of my 3,500 was in the pot and I was committed. I prayed for a deuce on the flop and instead got J 8 5. I bet anyway and both opponents called. The turn was a 9 and I went all in for my last 1,000 getting one call. I was against AT who shockingly missed all of his 14 outs.

This old timer in seat 1 gave me a little smile and I said "The worst thing is to make it to day 2 with no chips."

Two hands later he raised and I looked down at JJ. I three bet it and he four bet it it. I thought he had a real hand, but I knew he was also thinking about those deuces. Amazingly the flop came down jack high! BOOM! Now I was really hoping he had something. He bet the flop, I raised him, and he three bet me. Ah ha! I'm going to punish this guy!

The turn was a queen, he bet, I raised, he reraised, and I raised again. The river was a brick and he bet out into me! I put in my last 1,600 and he called. He rolled over AA like he thought he was getting that pot, but when I showed him my JJ he knew that he'd over played it.

There were 19,000 chips in that pot and two hands later I bagged them up. They'll be there waiting for me at the Rio at 3. Right now I'm in 79th of 280. 80 spots pay.

After three day 2's let's hope I can make my first day 3!!!

WSOP $2,500 6-max recap

2010-06-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

I finally found myself with some time to kill, so after much delay here is the recap of Event #26!

As I mentioned briefly before, I got off to an INSANE start in this tournament. I've never picked up so many chips so quickly at the WSOP despite the fact that just about every player at our table for the whole day was a pro of some kind.

1,254 players entered this one and we started with 7,500 chips each. For me the first two hours were about chopping out small pots. I made a few check raise bluffs, won the blinds plenty of times, and picked up some chips with standard continuation bets. I was at 11,000 after two hours.

Then I got involved in one of three huge pots that I'd play against Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet. Jon has won a couple million dollars in online tournaments and wrote a book with John "pearljammer" Turner. I've played against him many time online and he's a very strong player. He also seemed like a good dude from the little interaction we had.

In the first hand blinds were 75/150 and apestyles raised to 400 in the cutoff. He'd been very active this level, always making it 400 to go. I looked down at KT suited (a hand I would have folded against someone playing fewer hands) and raised to 1,200. Apestyes just called which turned out to be a big mistake for him!

The flop came down T T 3 giving me trips! Now I just had to hope he had something. I bet 2,000 into the 2,600 chip pot and got called. The turn was a queen, I bet 2,500, and again I got called. The river was a blank and I looked over at my opponent's stack. A quick glance told me he had 5K-6K chips. I thought if I put him all in he might fold, but if I bet a little less I'd get paid off since I was pretty sure he had something at this point. In the end I settled on 3,500 and I got a call with body language that said "I think, I'm beat, but I can't fold this hand." Later unprovoked when he was listing some other complaints it came out that he had AA on this hand!

Then I went on a busting streak. KT flopped a ten vs my QQ and was out the door. AK missed against my 88. And then AK hit for me against 88! HA!

Just before dinner I got involved in another big one where I put the screws to Apestyles. Although I had him down to about 2,000 chips after I cracked his AA, he built it back up to about 11,000 just so I could take some more from him!

The blinds were 200/400 with a 25 chip ante and he raised to 900 which seemed to be a standard raise at our table for some reason. I looked down at A7s and reraised him to 2,500. This is not normally a play I'd make, but I had a tight image and three times as many chips as he had so I figured I'd push him around. Well he had a strong hand again and this time he reraised me to 4,500. I would have folded to anything over 5,000, but I was getting 4 to 1 on my money, in position so even though I was sure to be dominated I decided to see the flop.

The flop came down queen high and to my shock Apestyles checked. What? He had less than a pot sized bet left and to me this meant that he had a rock solid hand (QQ, KK or AA) and was trying to get me to take a shot at the pot. But I wasn't biting. I checked behind him and the turn was an ace. Now this was getting interesting!

I could tell from his very subtle, but visible reaction that he didn't like the ace and he checked again. Or there was some chance he had AA and just made top set. At this point I figured him for KK. Given that, there was no reason for me to bet. If he has KK he folds, and if he has a monster hand I'm cooked so why bet?

The river was a brick and he checked again. Now I thought "how much is the most that I can bet that he'll call me with KK?" I decided on 3,000 and sure enough he called me and he did in fact have KK! Again I had him on the ropes, but he'd be up to 30,000 chips by our next confrontation! Dammit Apestyles why can't I kill you!

At the dinner break (after 6 levels) I had 45,000 which was six times what we started with. After level 8 I had 67,000! It was so much fun! I was blowing people to pieces and I was sure to be in the top 10 if not the top two or three chip stacks in the entire tournament.

Then I had two major miscues. On the first Apestyles got his revenge. The blinds were 300/600 and he raised to 1,400. I had AK and made it 3,500 to go. I'd actually been reraising him a lot all day and getting away with it. A few hands earlier I'd made the exact same play with 99 and won the pot on the flop. So when he made it 8,000 I thought there was some chance he was just getting fed up with me reraising him left and right. I had AK so I figured I'd put him to the test. I moved all in and he called me in a microsecond and rolled over AA! ACK! I was about 7% to win and I didn't. I lost 30,000 chips on that pot!

To make matters worse I lost another 20,000 with AQ to another guy who had AA a little while later! Bastards!

Now I was feeling like I'd totally blown it. After having 70,000 chips at my peak I was down to less than 20,000 with less than an average stack.

Sometime later 2006 WSOP player of the year Jeff Madsen got moved to our table, directly to my left. Jeff is a very aggressive player and I knew he'd be big trouble if he got some chips. The good news was he only had about 10,000. The better news is shortly after we started level 9 I took him out. I raised with AK suited, he moved all in with QQ and I flopped an ace. Bye Jeff!

I was hoping to get someone soft to fill that seat since the rest of my table was a bunch of ball busters. Instead I got Shaun Deeb who either wins or finishes in the top 3 on the yearly pokerstars tournament leader board every year. Can you imagine how hard that is? It's not like he got hot for a week and won the weekly tournament leaderboard on some bullshit site. He's had great results year after year on pokerstars. Well I busted his ass too.

In that hand the blinds were 400/800 and I raised to 2,500 with AQ from the small blind. He thought for about 2 seconds and moved all in for 28,000 from the big blind. I knew that couldn't be a strong hand so I called for about 28,000. He rolled over 55 which meant he was ahead. The flop came down K T 4 with two spades (I had the Q of spades). The turn was another spade. I saw the river was a 2 and I was like "fuck, I'm out! Oh shit it's a spade! It's a spade! I'm the king of the world! Suck it Deeb!" We counted down our stacks and I had him covered by 100! Ha!

I finished day 1 with 46,400 chips. 154 players made it through the day and 126 spots paid. I was in 90th place going into day 2 and my plan was to play tight until we made the money and then go for it.

As you may have seen in my Day 2 preview I got a great table draw. My table for day two had one player with about 50K and everyone else between 20K and 30K. When I got to the table it was better than I hoped. It seemed like only one of these guys was a strong player. But 15 minutes in, just when I was getting pumped about my chances of smashing these jokers, they broke our table.

My new table was much tougher and I saw Apestyles sitting in seat 6 with over 100,000 chips! Why aren't you dead Apestyles?

Despite my plan to play conservatively I couldn't help but be aggressive. And it didn't work out. The blinds were 600/1,200 and the under the gun player raised to 3,000. I was in the big blind with 44 and I called. The flop came down 9 9 3 which meant if my opponent didn't have a pocket pair or a 9 I was ahead. I checked, he bet, and I decided to put him to the test. When the hand started he had 28,000 and I had 50,000. We were 10 players away from the money and while I was hoping he didn't have anything, I thought there was some chance he might fold a strong hand given the circumstances. Sadly he called me with TT and I was down to 22,000.

Right after that I was moved to an even tougher table where everyone but one guy had over 100,000 chips!

Happily I was still able to cruise into the money. Actually it took quite a while, but not too many hands. When we got down to 128 players they started hand for hand play. The way that works is every table plays one hand and then the dealer stands up so the people in charge can see that the table is done with the hand. Once one hand has completed at every table they deal another one. And so on until we make the money. The do this to prevent people from stalling. With 22 tables it took at least 5 minutes for every hand and it took over an hour to go from 128 players to 126.

The very first hand after we made the money I picked up KK for the first time in the tournament! A player with 66 raised, I reraised and he put me all in. That had took me up to about 37,000.

The blinds were 800/1,600 at this point so I had plenty of chips to work with, but then one of those situations where there's nothing to do but go broke came up. I got dealt AKs, raised, got reraised by the big blind, went all in and he had JJ. I couldn't win this race and I was out.

I finished 98th which paid $5,211. A strong finish which gives me two cashes in three tournaments at the 2010 WSOP. Not to shabby!

When I went to get paid out, there was Apestyles at the cage getting his money too. I guess someone had finally taken him out. Nice playing with you Apestyles.

Day 1 update delay.

2010-06-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

I'm going to rest before my tournament instead of rushing to put up a post. I'll get to it later today or tomorrow. It was interesting so hopefully it will be worth the wait.

WSOP Event #26 ($2,500 6-max NL) Day 2 Preview

2010-06-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

I ended day 1 playing on a total ball buster table, with 5 opponents who all play poker for a living (one big name - 2007 WSOP main event champ Jerry Yang - and 4 online pros). At the end of day 1 we all put our chips into tamper proof plastic bags and they magically appear at a new table with new opponents the next day.

I was able to find my table redraw online and here is what it looks like:

Seat 1: Mitchell Kelly - 23500
Seat 2: Petr Bartagov - 49900
Seat 3: Shawn Hattem - 28900
Seat 4: Wesley Huff - 46400
Seat 5: Samuel Ngai - 22600
Seat 6: Erich Kollmann - 29800

I don't know any of these guys which is good. More importantly 4 of them have significantly fewer chips than I do and everyone has a below average stack. That means I'll be the one who is able to apply the pressure as we approach the money bubble.

Right now we have 156 players left and 126 spots pay. I'm in about 90th and given my table I have a great chance to make the money. You can check out all the chip counts here.

You can check out all the prizes here.

The highlights are: 126th pays $4,782, I need to make it to the top 36 to net $10,000, 6th is $77,000 and 1st is an insane $630,000!!! I have at least a 1 in 150 chance of winning outright.

Look at twitter for updates and pokernews.com for general tournament coverage.

WSOP Event #26 Day 1 Recap (Under Construction)

2010-06-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

WSOP event #26 was $2,500 No limit 6 handed. I had a crazy day 1 and I'll have a recap up by 2 (hopefully).

WSOP Schedule Update

2010-06-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's tournament and three days of play I felt like I needed a break so I opted to skip the $1,000 NL event that started today at noon. The noon start time and the fact that this is the blandest of events, made it an easier decision to skip it. Instead I plan to take this $1,000 and use it to try to qualify for the Main event once I get back to California (backers, you'll be in for the attempt - more details coming later).

My friends Jake and Chrissy are in town for the weekend and my wife Jen is arriving this afternoon. We're going to do the $155 a person chefs tasting menu at Latalier at the MGM tonight followed by some heavy drinking and negative EV gambling. Then tomorrow night Jen and I are going to see the Elvis Cirque du Soliel at Aria.

Poker is on hold until Monday (I'm already registered for $2,500 6 handed no limit), but I'm sure this is going to be a fun weekend.

WSOP Event #23 Recap

2010-06-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

I went into event #23 $2,500 limit 6 handed feeling good about my chances. But, if you read my tweets you know that this tournament was like my own personal hell.

I was playing my best game, against VERY weak competition, at the WSOP and I could not make ANYTHING! It was ridiculous!

I had 5 opponents. Seat 1 was played with seeming randomness before the flop, but was totally ABC after the flop.

Seat 2 kept limping before the flop with hands like J8 off suit or 56 suited and was generally clueless.

Seat 3 was solid, but nothing special.

Seat 4 had backed a buy who finished 2nd in a tournament a few days ago so he was playing this tournament even though he'd never played limit hold'em before. Some people say that and you know it's bullshit, but he said it ten times, and it was obvious that it was true based on his plays and the questions he was asking.

The guy in seat 6 was absolutely spewing chips. He was in half the hands, played them all like shit, and blamed every dealer for his bad luck. I swear to God that at one point he said to the dealer in all seriousness "the reason I lost that last hand was because you didn't pull the bets into the pot before you put out the river." I've heard all sorts of crazy superstitions, but that was a new one.

The fucking guy who had never played limit hold'em before was the second best of my opponents! AHHHHHHHH!!!! How did I not destroy these guys?

It boils down to this. In the first two hours we probably got dealt 80 hands. 70 of those hands were totally unplayable garbage. Of the other ten I won one pot with a bet on the flop, maybe 5 I took to showdown with a 2nd best hand of top pair or better, and 4 I folded post flop with total confidence that I was beaten.

There were two hands that maybe I could have folded on the turn, but they were both top pair aces and I lost to better kickers both times. Other than that I feel like I lost the minimum on every hand.

On the last hand before the first break I was down to 425 chips from 7,500 that we started with. I got AK, flopped top two, there was 4 way action and I quadrupled up. That was about the only thing that well in this tournament.

After the break I got it back up to 2,500, before getting blinded back down to 1,300or so. On the final hand I raised with K9 of spades, the spewmaster called me, and seat 1 reraised me. The flop came J 7 2 with two spades. I check raised the flop which unloaded seat 6, but seat 1 called. The turn was a 7, I bet and got raised all in. The river was a jack and my opponent showed me J5. Jack five? You three bet two players with J5? What - the - fuck? How did I not destroy these guys?

Now that this post is done this tournament is behind me.

WSOP Event #23 Preview

2010-06-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

Today at 5 I have $2,500 6 handed limit hold'em. This is my specialty. Coming off a cash in another limit hold'em event I feel great about my chances.

I played this event last year and we got something like 500 or 600 players. But last year there was a $2,500 no limit event at noon which drew off a lot of the players. This year the noon event is the $1,000 buy in ladies only event so I'd expect more players. I'd also expect more players who don't normally play limit who are here for a few weeks like me and want to play something today.

We'll be playing 8 levels today so I'll be looking at a 2:45 am finish if I make it to day 2. In fact if I make it to midnight I'm very likely to skip tomorrows $1,000 no limit at noon which would have me off until Monday.

When I went to sign up I peaked in on the ladies event. It was very surreal. Normally the fields in these tournaments are 90%-95% men. I played against 30 or 40 players in the limit event and two of them were women. So seeing a huge room filled with 1,000 women and no men playing poker was odd to say the least. For some reason it seemed a much more positive and light hearted environment.

WSOP Event #18 Day 2 Recap

2010-06-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

We started with 109 players needing to get to 45 to make the money. I was in 79th place chip wise to start the day, knowing I'd need to win a few pots early to survive.

But my only plan was to play my best and take it one hand at a time. With that said it's really difficult NOT to plan. I had 13 hours between day 1 and day 2 and you can bet that the majority of my thoughts during that span were about what was going to happen on Day 2. But there's no reason to go into it thinking I'm going to do this and I'm not going to do that. Even saying I want to have X chips by the next break is dangerous. You have to let the situation dictate your actions and if you follow a plan you came up in a vacuum you're doomed to make mistakes.

Everyone redrew for seats at the end of day 1 and happily I went from a miserable table where everyone could play and had a ton of chips to a table with a few soft spots. If fact once again the two worst players at the table were sitting on my left and my right.

Even better I got off to a great start. We were playing 1,000/2,000 stakes so every pot I won added to my stack significantly. I stole the blinds a few times. I won a pot or two with a continuation bet on the flop. I finally got pocket aces for the first time in the tournament and won a fair sized pot that was three bets preflop, one bet on the flop and no call on the turn. I won with JJ at showdown.

By the time the stakes went up to 1,200/2,400 I was up to 37,000 in chips! It was about the best possible day 2 start that I could imagine.

Then I didn't win a pot for the next hour and to make matters worse I played one hand very poorly. I raised in the cutoff with T9 suited and got called by the fishy player on the button. The flop was K 9 2, I bet and got raised.

The only thing he could have here is a king (or AA maybe). There were no draws, KQ, KJ, and QJ were what I figured to be his most likely holdings given the preflop action, and I knew he didn't have a pocket pair since he 3 bet me a little earlier with 66 (that was the hand with JJ).

I called the flop which is defensible, but I also called the turn and the river which is nothing short of foolish. He rolled over KQ suited and took down the pot. This was the worst hand I played in the entire tournament.

By the time we made it to the first break of day 2 (2 hours in) I had 21,000. More than I started with but much less than I had before.

While all this was going on players were blowing themselves up all over the place and we were down to 69 players as we started level 13 which was 1,500/3,000.

My 21,000 chips were equivalent to having $210 in a $15/$30 game, an amount that could go in on one pot. Even worse I went cold for almost an hour folding 100% of my hands preflop.

At the very end of level 13 I was down to about 9,000 chips when a big hand came up. Pokernews.com actually reported this hand in their tournament coverage, but they were not even close to what actually happened. Here is what they said:

When we arrived at the table the board was reading 3h Qh Kd 3d 5d and Donev was holding pocket tens. Wesley Huff tabled pocket queens and doubled up through Donev.

Huff is now up to 21,000 chips and Donev slipped to 50,000.

OK. About the only thing they got right here is the players involved and the chip counts at the end of the hand (some of the cards are similar I guess).

What really happened is I had KT of spades and I raised to 3,000. Donev in the small blind reraised to 4,500 with QQ (with the Q of clubs). The flop came down K T 3 with two clubs (notice it was all red cards in the pokernews version) which of course was a monster flop for me. The first card I saw was the king and given that I had half my stack in the pot already it was a welcome sight.

On the flop Donev checked which I thought meant he had a big hand, but I put him on AA or AK and no matter what he had I was getting it all in with this hand. I bet and he just called. The turn was the A of clubs which was the worst card in the deck (not knowing what he had). Donev checked again and I put in my last 3,200.

Before he turned over his hand he said "I just have a draw." This was good because it gave me a chance to say "good, I hope you miss it!" This little micro conversation kept me from thinking about the fact that a club, a jack or a queen (14 cards out of 44) would put an end to my tournament. It was about 2 seconds from the time I saw his hand to the time the river card was on the table. I hadn't processed what he needed to beat me yet, but I knew a ten made me a full house and I was still alive.

KT beating QQ on a A K T T 3 board is a little different from QQ beating TT on a K Q 5 3 3 board. Boo pokernews!

That pot kept my head above water for a while, but soon the blinds sucked the life out of me. I got absolute garbage after that hand. Nothing even close until I was down to 7,000. At that point we had 50 players left. 5 spots out of the money and the blinds were taking 3,000 chips out of my stack every round. It did not look good.

Finally I got QJ suited which was the best hand I'd seen for almost an hour! The under the gun player raised, but I still thought I had to go for it. I three bet making it 6,000, he put me all in and I was pumped to see him turn over TT. I expected to be behind 60/40 or maybe even worse, but instead I was 50/50. Even better I flopped a queen and my hand held up.

Maybe 5 minutes later we went on a 60 minute dinner break with 47 players left. I had 18,000 and looking around at the other stacks there were two players with about 6,000 (the blinds would be 1,500/3,000 when we came back) and 4 others with between 8,000 and 15,000. So my chances were very, very good of making the money. But it's not like I was going back to the table and folding AA or KK so if I made a big hand and lost I could still come up short.

I had an hour to let my mind spin all the scenarios. Every time I thought about missing the money I made sure I thought about winning the tournament outright. Looking back I think I had a much better chance of making the final table than of going broke short of the money.

Two hands after we came back my resolve got put to the test. The under the gun player who might have been the tournament chip leader raised. This guy was very aggressive and I was 100% sure if I'd get more action than I wanted. I looked down at QQ...

Jesus. Can I really fold QQ here? I knew calling was not an option. If I reraised it would be to 9,000. Then if I bet the flop that's another 3,000. And since I was all but sure I'd get check raised I'm looking at getting it all in by the flop or the turn.

Did I really want to get it all in with QQ two spots from a $4,000 payout? No I didn't. This was the first time in over 2,000,000 hands of limit poker that I folded QQ before the flop.

After I folded another mega stack in the small blind three bet it and the flop came down ace high. There was a bet and a raise on the flop so I'm confident I didn't fold a winner.

5 minutes later we were in the money! Whoo! 2 hands after that I was out. Boo!

I got dealt Q9s in the small blind and I raised. The big blind called and the flop came down A K 9. Not great, but at least I had a pair. I had to bet and I got called. The turn was a brick, but I bet my last 6,000. My opponent thought for 20 seconds and called with K8. No help on the river and that was it.

I finished in 45th place which paid $4,097. Also I missed the Stud event so I have $5,597 more in my fat roll of hundreds than I could have at this point in my trip.

A very good start and a good boost for the confidence.

WSOP Event #18 Day 2 Preview

2010-06-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

To start here is a list of the payouts if you want to check them out. Also here is a list of the chip counts going into day 2.

We get underway at 2:30 with 109 players left. I'm in 79th place. When we go back we'll have 10 more minutes of playing 800/1,600 stakes (400/800 blinds) before we go to 1,000/2000.

The average stack is 26,200 which means if I can win one good pot I'll be there. It's also very heartening to see that the chip leader only has 87,000 and I only need to get to 55,000 to be in the top 5.

Today the plan is to play 8 levels or down to the final table. I'd guess that it will be 8 levels and the top 20 or so will come back tomorrow.

The $1,500 7-card stud event goes off at 5 and I can register as late as 7:15 so if I don't make it in the limit, I'll likely play that tournament as planned.

But fuck that. Anything can happen. I'm only 108 players away from winning the title and $200,000.

WSOP Event #18 Day 1 - The Long Version

2010-06-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

We started Event #18 with 476 players each with 6,000 chips. I got a great table draw. 15 minutes in I felt like I had everyone figured out to some extent. Happily the two best players were across the table and the two worst were directly to my left and my right (you tend to be involved in more hands with people sitting close to you).

My toughest opponent was a guy who I played at a final table in a $2,000 buy in no limit tournament in L.A. last year (only 60 entrants in that one - I finished 4th). I have never seen anyone at the poker table look more calm, and quiet. The only way you know he's not dead is periodically his chips end up in the pot. I kept rooting for something terrible to happen to him, but that guy is good and he's still in it. Also of note, he opened up his laptop and got in a few hands of online poker while we were on a 20 minute break! Some people just can't get enough poker!

The biggest thing that happened in the first few hours was the soft spot to my left went broke and got replaced with 23 year old poker freak of nature Tom "Durrrr" Dwan. Don't let his stupid nick name (it's actually his online poker screen name) fool you. This guy is as good as they get.

Let me tell you how good this guy is. He posted an open challenge to anyone in the world to play him 50,000 hand of online, heads up (one on one), $200/$400 blinds no limit hold'em or pot limit Omaha. If he came out ahead (even $1) his opponent would owe him $500,000 (plus he would keep any money he won playing). But if his opponent beat him (again even by just a dollar) he'd pay out $1,500,000!!

There are a few people who are interested and so far only one player has given him action. At last check which was 33,000 hands into the match Patrick Antonius (one of the worlds best cash game players) was losing $1,900,000 to Dwan.

Another thing I'd heard about Tom is that he has major side bets (like all the top pros do) for this world series. I'd heard a few different things, but word on the street is that he bet $2,500,000 to win $8,000,000 that he'd win at least one of the 57 WSOP events this year. He got incredibly close finishing 2nd of 2,500+ players in a $1,500 no limit event a few days ago.

So this is the fucking guy I have dead to my left (which means he's acting after me - a big deal - every hand except when I'm the button). After a little while I asked him about the side bets since I'd heard different amounts. Let me just pause here to say how cool is that? The guys picture is all over the place here, he's on the cover of poker magazines left and right, everyone is speculating about this stuff and I get to sit next to him and just ask him what's going on in between hands!

What he told me was it would be his "biggest win ever" meaning middle seven figures. But it turns out that on top of his bet to win an event this year, he has some other two and three year bets as well as money won bets and head to head who has a better series bets with several other top pros.

Which brings me to the story of a ridiculous hand that I played against him. We were playing 200/400 stakes, I had about 7,000 chips and we'd just come back from our second break (it was 4:45). Tom had mentioned that he had to play the $10,000 2-7 lowball event which started at 5. That event was likely to only draw about 100 players which would give him a great chance to win even though that's not his game. It's just easier to get through 100 people than the 1,000+ you get in most of the events. When you have millions on the line for victory you need to give yourself every chance. The buy ins are nothing and even the prize money is not much compared to the side bets.

So he started raising every hand without even looking at his cards! Remember we're playing limit poker here so you can just move all in; you can only raise a specific amount. He said his goal was to take his stack of about 4,000 chips up to 8,000 or go broke. The thing is that he can go off and play that other tournament, but his chips stay on the table and his blinds get taken as if he were folding 100% of the hands. He thought if he had 8,000 or so that was enough that his chips would last a few hours and he might be able to make it back to them on breaks of the other tournament (or if he went broke in the 2-7 tournament of course he'd come back to them).

Amazingly he was having trouble getting action from the players at our table. After a few hands I picked up T9 suited. While I'd greatly prefer a hand with some showdown value like an ace or a pair, I figured it was worth it to take a risk here. I raised knowing 100% that I was going to get three bet by a player who hadn't seen his cards and I would probably end up heads up against him with a slightly above average hand.

So I made it 400, Tom made it 600, the small blind called and so did I. The flop came down T 3 3, the small blind checked, I checked, and still not having seen his cards Tom bet 200. The small blind made it 400 and I made it 600 with my top pair. At this point Tom looked and called. I figured he'd call with as little as one over card here.

The turn was a 9 which was a great card because now I could beat any other player with a ten (unless it was TT or T3). The small blind checked, I bet 400, Tom went all in for 525 and after lots of hemming and hawing the small blind folded 77 face up.

The river was a 7! The small blind went semi crazy and I thought "wow I dodged a bullet there!" So I rolled over my two pair ready to take down the 5k chip pot. WRONG! Very quietly Tom rolls over 23 off suit and wins with trips! Curse you Tom Dwan! I hope you lose all your side bets you bastard!

I'm just kidding. My impression of Tom was nothing but favorable. He seemed like a nice guy and I wish him the best. But it's not every fucking day that someone three bets you dark with 23 off, and flops trips in a $2,000 tournament!

A few hands later Tom went down the tubes, strolled off to play his $10,000 tournament and things went back to normal.

About that time I got dealt KQ and came in for a raise. I got three bet by a solid player and I just called. The flop came down K J 8 and I check called the flop with the plan to check raise the turn. When it came out it was a 9 and like clock work I check raised. But them my opponent reraised me! Yikes! All of a sudden I did not like my hand, but I figured a T or maybe a K or Q would make me a winner. When the river came out - BING! - it was a ten making me a straight. I check raised my opponent again and took down a huge pot. If I miss the river I have less than 1,000 chips left.

But I took that money and ran with it.

In level 8 we were playing 500/1000 and my biggest hand of the day came up. I had stormed up to 17,000 chips and I got dealt KT of hearts on the button. I raised, the small blind reraised, the big blind made it 4 bets and we both called. The flop came down Q T 5 with one heart. The small blind checked, the big blind bet, I called, now the small blind raised and the big blind reraised! ACK!

I knew I was beat, but there was a 9,000 in the pot and it would only cost me another 1,000 to see the turn card. I figured my opponents for hands like AQ or AA or even AK with flush draw. I thought for 30 seconds and decided since I had a backdoor flush draw to go with my pair it was worth it to see the turn. It was a total brick - a six. SHIT! Now what?

The big blind bet the turn and now I'm getting 12.5 to 1 on my money (assuming the small blind also calls, which I was sure he'd do) when I'm about 8 to 1 to make two pair or trips. The problem is if I'm against a set I'm drawing dead.

In the end I went for it and I hit a ten on the river! Slot machine noises instantly went off in my head. I got one call on the river and was up to 27,000 as we went on break after level 8.

From there I took it all the way up to 33,000 when average was less than 20,000. Those 33,000 chips had a value of $11,000 real dollars. But the last hour really sucked! Unlike the first 9 levels I was faced with a handful of tough decisions and I missed the flop over and over when I had a hand to play.

I ended the day with 16,300. You can check out my Day 2 Preview which will be up shortly for what comes next.

WSOP Event #18 Day Recap coming soon!

2010-06-10T01:23:00.000-07:00

I had a solid, productive day at the tables today. The short version is after 13 hours I made it to day 2 of WSOP event #18 $2,000 buy in limit with 16,300 chips. We have 109 players left, 45 spots pay, the average stack is around 25,000 and we get back to it tomorrow at 2:30.

The long version is much more interesting, but since it's 1:30 I'm going to save the details for tomorrow morning.

Twitter News and WSOP Event #18 Preview

2010-06-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

I've discovered that the poker players I follow on twitter who are playing in WSOP event #17 have all been including #WSOP17 in their posts. Then when I clicked on that notation it brought me to all the tweets that included #WSOP17.

So tomorrow I'll be including #WSOP18 in all of my tweets. If you click on that you can read the tweets of all the other players who are tweeting about WSOP event #18 and of course anyone who is following those other players will be able to read my tweets. If you want other news and updates I'd encourage you to check out pokernews.com, pokerpages.com or cardplayer.com (probably in that order). It's doubtful that there will be anything about me on there (unless I tangle with someone famous or end up with the chip lead), but you'll be able to check out stuff about the tournament in general.

On to the Event #18 Preview! This tournament is $2,000 limit hold'em. I've spend the past almost 3 years of my career playing limit hold'em day after day. If I get anything between an OK and a good run of cards I should make the money and if I get a great run of cards, the sky is the limit. I have no doubt that I could win this tournament.

Last year there were 446 entrants and 45 spots paid with anything at the final table paying over $20,000 and 1st place being $190,000.

We're starting with 6,000 chips, stakes of 50/100, and 60 minute levels. Every two hours we get a 20 minute break and after 6 hours of play we get a 90 minute dinner break. If I make it through 10 levels (by then the stakes will be 800/1,600) I'll be on to day 2 which will start Thursday at 2:30.

Look for twitter updates and send me all the mojo you can muster!

News From Vegas

2010-06-08T22:46:00.001-07:00

Ok, not really news per se, but more an update of what I've been doing and how I've been feeling. Nothing and shitty! Good night!

Just kidding. My flight in was a smooth as can be without the normal terror producing turbulence that you get flying into Vegas in the summertime. My cab driver saw my Ipod and spent the whole ride grilling me for tech support about how to get video onto his ipod. I was smart enough to get a room in the part of the Rio that is slightly closer to the convention area.

I had Chinese for dinner which was interesting for two reasons. First the Chinese place here is right next to the sports book and game 3 of the NBA finals was going on at the time. If you want to hear people cheer with conviction, and groan with true pain you should watch a major sporting event in a sports book.

Secondly I got a great fortune in my fortune cookie. It read "Listen attentively. You will come out ahead in the coming week." If a verbal tell leads to me doing something in one of these tournaments I'm framing that fortune!

After dinner I made my way down to the tournament area. The first year I came to the WSOP in 2005 everything was packed into the Amazon Room. The main tournaments, cash games, satellites, other nightly tournaments, tournament registration, the cashier, and the televised feature table were all packed into that one room. It's a huge ass room (40,000 square feet), but it was still crowded.

Now everything has it's own room and the main tournaments go off in the TWO biggest rooms in the massive Rio convention area. It's pretty amazing.

Noon to 5 is when there is the most hustle and bustle down there, but there was still some electricity in the air at 9 pm when I went down to register for tomorrow's tournament.

Phil Helmuth was sitting at table that was on the corner of the playing area and about 75 people were gathered around watching him in the $5,000 no limit hold'em event. No doubt they were wondering if he's the same in person as he is on TV. He is. I've played with him 3 times and he is always talking and always talking about himself.

In other goings on the final table of Event #16 $10,000 7 card stud hi-lo was going on with Jennifer Harmon, John Junada, Dario Minieri, and Steve Zolotow in the action. I didn't recognize anyone else at first glance, but you can bet that no one who sucks is playing that game for that cash.

The final two tables of event #13, $1,500 no limit were in action and the final 50 or so players in the $1,500 6 handed were also fighting it out.

The ten minutes I spent walking around checking what was going on really made me want to play! I'm ready!

It's Go Time!

2010-06-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

I'm off to the airport in a few minutes to head to Vegas for the WSOP! I'm fired up!

In Huff WSOP tradition my wife Jen took some pictures of our son Peyton holding and playing with the $13,000 I'm rolling into Vegas with. They should be up soon.

$550 Lucky Chances Tournament Recap

2010-06-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get in a tournament or two of in person play before I headed off to the WSOP and sure enough Lucky Chances in Colma is running a series of tournaments this week.

Sunday's event was a $550 10 handed NL hold'em event that drew just over 200 players. I played against about 30 different players in this one and 25 of them couldn't carry a bag of shit if it said poker on the side. I feel like I've never had higher positive expected value in a $500+ tournament in my entire career.

I played well and ran my starting stack of 6,000 up to 10,000 without ever making a real hand or ever having to show my cards. Everyone was so transparent that I just waited until I was confident no one hand anything and then fired at the pot.

About 2 hours in I got one of my legs cut out from under me. The blinds were 100/200 and I was in the cutoff with pocket tens. The player to my right made it 700 to go and I made it 2,100. He thought for a long time and he was not the type of player who would do this as an act. After a solid 60 seconds he moved all in for 5,000. Getting 7 to 3 on my money with only half my stack at risk I couldn't see folding to an opponent who honestly seemed unsure. When I called he acted like he was dead, but then he flipped up JJ and happily took the pot when no tens showed up.

I bounced around a little bit, but eventually went down the tubes almost 4 hours in when my JJ lost to AT. I finished about 100th. I played great all day and got my money in with way the best of it. I can't ask much more of myself than that.

Tomorrow I expect to face a lot of the same players in a $330 NL tournament with the same structure and then Tuesday it's off to Vegas!

Angry Dealings with Carbon Poker

2010-06-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

I miss pokerstars. Their customer service is better than any customer service in any industry I've ever encountered in my life. I've e-mailed their support a few dozen times over the years and without fail I've gotten a response within the hour (sometimes in less than 10 minutes) written by a human, who knows how to read, and addressing my precise problem.

Little in the world makes me more aggravated than waiting 48 hours for a response and getting a form letter that barely has anything to do with my problem. I want to write back "What's wrong with you fucking morons? Didn't you read my e-mail?"

I could write pokerstars an e-mail right now that says "Hey Ass lickers! I think you should go hump a turtle! What do you think of that?" In 20 minutes they'd write me back with something like this:

Dear AceSedai:

Thanks for your e-mail! We are thrilled that you've noticed our ass licking! We here at pokerstars want to be the best at everything, from tournaments to cash games to ass licking!

As far as humping turtles goes, at this time we don't have access to any live turtles, but we are currently humping a stuffed turtle. To compensate you for any inconvenience this turtle substitution may have caused we are going to credit your account with $100.

Furthermore we have added both live and stuffed turtles with a variety of feed and clothing options to the Pokerstars FPP store.

Don't hesitate to contact us in the future with any other ass licking or turtle humping concerns! Good luck at the tables!

Chris Moneymaker

I bring this up because Carbon poker is making me angry. After finishing the last level of "The Race" promotion I went to make a cashout. When I did, $200 I earned as part of that promotion disappeared from my account. "Whoops!" I thought as I do when I make a mistake. Looking back on the terms and conditions of that promotion (no surprise that it was in fine print) I saw that I have to wait 7 days after the end of the promotion before I can cashout.

Luckily there is a happy little button that allows me to cancel a pending cashout. So that's what I did, maybe 10 minutes later. Of course my $200 was still gone, but I figured a short e-mail to support would fix the problem. WRONG!

37 hours later (literally) I got a response telling me that my $200 was gone because I had cashed out. What's wrong with you fucking morons? Didn't you read my e-mail? I never actually cashed out!

I'm tempted to write them an e-mail that says "Hey Ass lickers! I think you should go hump a turtle! What do you think of that?"

I'm sure 3 days later I'd get a response that said:

Dear Player

We are directing your e-mail to the appropriate department. Expect a response in 15 business days. We have charged your account a $100 processing fee for this e-mail. Marginal luck at the tables!

Support

I bet they do have a turtle humping department at Carbon poker. Ass lickers!

The Race - Conclusion

2010-06-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

When I first looked at Carbon poker's "The Race" promotion I was sure it was going to be a slam dunk pile of cash for me. It was on the border of too good to be true at first glance, but the deeper I dug the worse and worse the promotion got.

Why did I believe that this was going to be such a big deal? The reason is poker sites need players. The more players they have the more than can expect to get. If I know there are going to be games going on a site at the stakes I'm interested in I'll keep money on that site and check it often. If they don't have the players once or twice I might never look back.

For the casual player it's hard to find a reason to NOT play on pokerstars. If you want to play $5/$10 limit poker on Carbon you'll probably find one game going. It might be 2 on the weekend or zero on a weekday morning. If there is one game you might have to wait 15 minutes to get into it. That's not long at a card room, but it's forever sitting in front of your computer. On the other hand pokerstars will have somewhere between 10 and 40 games going 24 hours a day. Right now (11 am on a Thursday) there is one $5/$10 game on Carbon and 20 on pokerstars.

What about no limit? Let's look at a popular level like $1/$2 blinds NL. On carbon poker they have eight 6 handed games going (4 of them actually have 5 or less players) and zero 9 handed games. Not bad right. Well pokerstars has 75 6-max games and 60 9 handed games going.

It's hard to compete with that huge load of games. Never longer than 30 seconds to get into a game and if you don't like the players, pick a new game!

The only way to lure players away from pokerstars to other sites is promotions. I thought The Race was carbon making a huge push to lure players away. I thought they might be willing to lose money in the short term to bring in new players and fill up their tables. I was wrong.

After my last post about The Race I realized when I put all of the promotions together I was making about 68% rakeback. I get a flat 75% on cake and on Absolute if you pile up the rakeback, rake races, deposit bonuses, and absolute points it's over 70%. Plus the games are better on AP.

So I bailed on the race. I completed 9 levels and made about $500.

WSOP Warm Up

2010-06-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

I've been playing a few multitables here and there in an effort to get ready for the WSOP. Yesterday I finished 2nd of 137 in a $55 NL hold'em tournament which paid $1,200. That's not off the charts money by any means, and the field wasn't exactly loaded with pros, but it was still good for some momentum heading into the series.

Also in an effort to warm up for the WSOP, I'll be playing two tournaments in person just before I head out to Vegas. Both tournaments are taking place at Lucky Chances in Colma, CA. The first is on Sunday and features a $550 buy in and a guaranteed 1st place prize of $40,000. The second is on Monday, has a $330 buy in and a $20,000 1st place guarantee.

My guess is that each tournament will have about 200 entrants and feature the regular bay area tournament players. Hopefully I can book a nice cash and go into the WSOP feeling sharp. I'll let you know how it goes.

WSOP 2010 Starts Tomorrow

2010-05-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

While I won't be in Vegas until June 8th, the 2010 World Series of Poker kicks off tomorrow with 57 bracelet events with buy ins ranging from $1,000 to $50,000.

I spent an hour this morning sitting at Starbucks reading Bluff Magazine and it feels like just about every article in the June issue is about the WSOP. Reading about how many of the big name pros are getting excited about the series makes me excited to get there and start playing!

I have a very positive feeling about this year which will be my 6th at the WSOP. I have more experience under my belt and compared to many of the players I'll be an old veteran.

But there are other things working in my favor as well. For one I've lost 20 pounds since last summer (Almost 30 since January of 2009). Playing from noon until 2 in the morning takes it's toll on everyone and I'm hoping that my improved physical fitness will help me deal with the long hours.

Another advantage I'll have over many of my opponents is I'm totally Vegased out. When I was 21 and even when I was 25 (I'm 30 now) I wanted to go out and get rip roaring drunk and gamble it up non stop! Hit me! Yo eleven! More Whisky! Clackity clack!

I've spent over 100 days in Vegas over the past 10 years (Plus a few dozen in Tahoe, Reno, Atlantic City, etc.)and I've had my fill. I still have fun playing negative EV games with my friends, but I no longer feel like spending time in my hotel room is wasting precious Vegas moments. While many of my opponents will be getting shit faced, trying to get laid, going to clubs, getting lap dances and playing craps long into the night, I'll be asleep.

Also working for me is, I've done this all before. I know where the bathrooms are and that I have to leave the table 20 seconds before the breaks start (have you ever seen 2,000 people get up to go to the bathroom at the same time?). I know where I like to eat at the Rio on dinner break and to not eat too much and cause a food coma. I know that I need to bring a snack to get me from the noon start time to the dinner break. I know that if you drink a red bull and a coffee you're going to miss two hands while you go take a piss. I'm not star struck by any of the players (Phil Helmuth? Yeah I've played against him 3 times, busted him once and saw him almost eat a graham cracker he found on the floor - REALLY!). I'm extremely good looking which distracts all of my opponents and lulls them into submission. I know it takes about 16 minutes to get from a room in the Masquerade tower at the Rio to the Amazon room. Did I mention the bathrooms, because that really is a big deal?

It really is exciting. There is nothing like the feel of a fat roll of hundred dollar bills in your pocket and peeling off 20 or 30 of them like it's nothing to buy into one of these tournaments. Or even better having so many that you need to carry around $1,000 chips instead because the roll of hundreds is so bulky that it won't fit in your pocket comfortably anymore.

More on the WSOP soon. I really feel like this is going to be my year!

SCOOP Recap

2010-05-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

When you add it all up I lost $3,314 in the FTOPS and SCOOP combined. I played a total of 28 tournaments and had 4 money finishes. Under these conditions I'm shooting for something cloer to 25% in the money rather than 1 in 7.

Of course I had my opponent all in more than once with a chance to make the money if I won one of those confrontations in the both the triple shootout and the first heads up matches event. I easily could have (and probably should have) had 6 cashes instead of 4.

Looking ahead, I'm really excited about the WSOP this year. I feel like I've found the perfect mix of tournaments to play and I'm coming into the series more focused than ever. This will be my sixth year at the WSOP, I'm playing 6 tournaments, so I'm going to go on the record and predict a finish of 6th place or better on one of these events!

The action kicks off at the Rio the last few days in May, but my 2010 WOSP will start June 9th.

The Race Days 5-14

2010-05-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the race promotion I thought "holy shit, they are giving me $25,000." At first glance it looked like all I needed to do was earn 100,000 points or pay $10,000 in rake to hit all of the race prizes. But then I saw that the list of point milestones were not cumulative targets, but rather 15 individual promotions that had to be hit independent of one another. At that point it looked like I'd need to pay over $30,000 in rake to hit them all.

In an equally disappointing moment I learned that because of my 35% rakeback deal I would only be earning points at 65% the rate of normal players. It makes sense, but I didn't know about it. Factoring that in I'd need to pay an insane $46,000 in rake in one month to hit all the levels.

Also I was expecting (foolishly) that rake back nation would be having their normal rake race for Carbon, which was canceled. That's another $1,000 I thought I'd get.

Also I learned that since I have a rakeback deal I'm not eligible for other parts of the Carbon VIP program.

Add all of this up and instead of making enough from this promotion to buy a car, it looks more like flat screen TV kind of money. I'm not going to look a gift few grand in the mouth, but it's not as earth shattering as I'd hoped.

So far I've earned about 20,000 points which has allowed me to hit the first 8 milestones and pick up a whopping $302.50. I expect to finish the month with about 50,000 which will mean I'll end up making an extra $1,502 from the race.

To get there I will have ended up paying $7,693 in rake. Factoring in the money from the race, the value of the actual points, my 35% rakeback, and clearing of two deposit bonuses, I'll be getting back $5,282 or 68% of my rake. Not too bad at all. Not the 100% I was hoping for at the start, but still solid.

More SCOOP Bad News

2010-05-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

I came up short in the $33 and $320 8-game as well as the $55 and $530.

This is a major disappointment, not so much because of the money, but because these should be the tournaments in which I have the highest expected value and I didn't even sniff the money. Frustrating to say the least.

5 tournaments left in the SCOOP: $270 heads up matches, $215 HORSE, $215 NL hold'em, $109 NL hold'em (the low stakes main event - $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool), and $1,050 NL hold'em (the medium stakes main event - $3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool). The go off in that order starting Saturday morning.

Even in the worst case scenario if I blank in all of these I'll have about $3,000 of my $7,500 FTOPS/SCOOP bankroll left.

Of course the best case scenario is a mid six figure pay day, which is why we play. Let's hope I finish out the 2010 SCOOP with a bang!

Thursday's Action.

2010-05-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

$33 and $320 8 game mixed games today starting right now. I'm going to late register. I always like my chances when we're playing more than one game.

SCOOP Event #28 ($109 w rebuys) Recap.

2010-05-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

We started this tournament with 2,066 entrants all shooting for the $103,856 first place prize or at least the $551 for 270th. At the end of the rebuy period I had about 11,000 chips which was what I got for my buy in, one rebuy and the add on. About 4 hours into the tournament I was all the way up to 15K. What a boring 4 hours!

At that point an interesting hand came up. The blinds were 150/300 and the under the gun player made it 750 to go. He got called by a player a few spots to his left and I made it 3,000 to go with TT. The UTG player who had about 60,000 chips called. The other guy thought for about 30 seconds and then went all in for about 18K.

This seemed very suspicious. I thought maybe the all in player thought I was putting on a squeeze play and decided to "resqueeze." I couldn't rule out AA or AK, but looking back a hand like 77 or 88 makes the most sense. In the end I folded, because I was worried I might get called by both players and TT plays like shit against two hands. The UTG player folded so I have no idea what they both had.

I finally caught a break when I got dealt AA. A player in early position raised to 1,200 with KJ and I just called (the blinds were 250/500 by that point). The flop came down J T 8. He bet, I moved all in and he called.

One or two hands later I got dealt KQs. A player in middle position made it something like 1,100 to go and I just called. The flop came down J T 2 giving me two overs and a straight draw. My opponent bet about half the pot on the flop and again I opted to just call thinking I could hit or if he missed I'd likely be able to steal the pot with a bet on the turn.

The turn was a brick and my opponent checked. I bet 6K into the 7K pot and he called. Yikes! The river was another blank, he checked and without hesitation I moved all in for 20K. Scary! He thought for 10 seconds and folded leaving me with a stack of 41K when average was about 30K.

A little while later I got a big boost and then a big screw job. On the first one I reraised a guy all in who had about 20K. I had AQs and he had KK. I made a flush and was up to 60k. Then I got a cheap look in the big blinds with 89. The flop came with an 8 and a 9 making me two pair. But I was against 88 who flopped a set! ACK! After those two hands I was at 20K.

With about 450 players left I had 14K and average was 53K. I caught a huge break when I got it all in and flopped a Q with AQ vs AK! I caught another break when I folded 77 after being very close to raising it. It turns out I would have been against 88 and the flop came with a 7 and an 8! That would have been curtains for sure.

I won several small pots and one moderate one to take my stack to 60K when we made the money.

On my final hand I had JJ. The blinds were up to 1K/2K with a 250 ante and a player opened for something like 6K. I had a little over 50K and I thought about making it 15K to go, but I decided I should just get it all in there and pick up the 11,000 that was lingering out there in the pot. I got called by AK and he hit an ace. That's usually how a tournament ends.

I finished 185th which paid $681. Again not a ton of money, but it always feels good to cash.

SCOOP Event #28 Underway.

2010-05-12T14:32:00.001-07:00

After a day off yesterday I'm back in SCOOP action today with $109 with rebuys 9 handed no limit hold'em. You get 3,000 chips for the buy in, 3,000 chips for a rebuy (you can only rebuy if you have 3,000 chips or less) and 5,000 for the add on at the end of the first hour. So I should have at least 11,000 chips at the end of the first hour when the blinds go from 30/60 to 40/80.

That's right. 140 or so big blinds at the end of the first hour. That is deep stack poker! This one is going to take FOREVER! Probably 7 hours to make the money. Luckily I feel rested and ready. Look for twitter updates.

SCOOP Update

2010-05-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I've played 4 (well three and a half) SCOOP tournaments and come up short in them all.

The biggest disappointment came in the $215 triple shootout. Starting at a table of 10 players and needing to beat all of them to make the money I made it down to 1 opponent. And I was much better than him. And at one point I had a 33,000 to 17,000 chip lead.

He beat me because I did exactly what I shouldn't have done; I played big pots. If you have the skill advantage you want to play small pots and let your edge kick in over time. If you just throw your chips in there who knows what might happen. I can't remember the last time I felt so frustrated about a tournament result. I totally blew it! I won $1,700 in the cash games that day and still felt super pissed at the end of my work day.

The other 3 tournaments were two turbo limit tournaments ($22 and $215) that ended very quickly without much fanfare and a $162 half pot limit hold'em, half pot limit Omaha. In that one I got dealt AA on the button, raised, got reraised and I raised again (I considered calling, but decided to be aggressive). The flop came down jack high garbage and my opponent check raised me all in. I called and he showed me JJ! BOO!

I'm losing $1,689 for the SCOOP, and my $7,500 FTOPS/SCOOP bankroll sits at $5,248.

Nothing today, but $109 with rebuys tomorrow at 2 PT and $320 8 game at 11 on Thursday.

SCOOP Event #13 $162 "Ante Up" Recap

2010-05-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

This tournament had a very interesting format. I thought it was just going to be antes from hand #1, but it turns out it was increasing antes with blinds of 5/5 the whole way through. After the first few levels there were effectively no blinds.

My opponents clearly had no idea how to adjust to this format. I'd say about 2/3 of the pots were being raised preflop. That means 1/3 of the time you could see a flop for 5 chips. We started with 5,000. I can see when the antes are 10 chips a player, or even 25, folding might be an option. But when the antes are 100 and there's 900 in the pot and 1/3 of the time you get to see a flop with a shot of hitting big and winning that 900, folding for 5 chips is crazy.

But EVERY SINGLE HAND 2, 3 or 4 players would fold preflop with no raise. Even when the antes got up to 500 a player and there was 4,500 in the pot before anyone had done anything and these guys had 50,000 chips they were STILL not putting in those 5 chips to see the flop. It's flabbergasting! What are you worried about someone popping it and losing .01% of your stack? PUSSIES!

I committed to playing every hand for 5 chips early on as did some of my thinking opponents. I think the fact that I play limit all day and am used to seeing flop after flop in spots where my opponents could have a wide range of hands and playing pots on the turn and river helped me a lot.

Early on I was on the button and a few people had called the 5 chips. The ante was 50 a player so there was close to 500 in the pot. Confused by the format everyone was playing really tight and passive. I decided I was going to just start shooting at the pots with air for a while until I got some resistance. So I made it 400 to go with T2.

I got called by one player in the field and the flop came down Q 9 8. My opponent checked to me and I bet out 600 still on a bluff. He called me and the turn came down a jack. BINGO! My total bluff turned into a straight! My opponent checked and I checked behind him hoping to convince him that I didn't have a ten in my hand.

The river was a brick and my opponent moved all in! HA! I had about 4,000 left in my stack and snap called him. He had QJ and I was up to 11,000.

At this point he went ballistic going on about how I was a moron and how could I play T2 and how he was rich because of players like me. For 30 minutes every time I'd lose a pot he'd call me an ATM or a donk or my favorite a "Donk ATM." Clearly he was rattled big time (he raised to 900 on the very next had with only 450 in the pot)and this hand helped me later on.

I flopped a straight vs a set and busted a short stack who had AJ vs my AK and found myself with 18K. We started with 2,007 players, at that point there were 575 left and I had a dead average stack.

I was up to 25K when I got into it with Mr. Donk ATM again. We were 4+ hours into the tournament and we were still at the same table which was a little surprising. The antes were 200 a player at this point and I made it 1,200 to go with AK. Mr. Donk called me and the flop came down A 8 2 rainbow.

I knew he was thinking about the hand with the T2. He'd mentioned it hours after it happened. I was sure he'd call me with anything at all if I bet the flop and there was no way he'd have me on AK. So I bet and he called. The turn was a blank and I checked hoping he'd bet, but he checked behind. The river was another blank and I decided to overbet the pot to make it look like a bluff. There was about 6,000 in the pot and I bet 7,000. He insta called me with QQ. He was down to 5K and I was up to 35K. SUCK IT JERK!

I still had about 35K which was average when we made the money with 288 players left.

I caught a nice break beating JJ with AQ which took me up to 62K and had me in great shape. At that point I was in 60th of 219 remaining players.

I'd faded down to less than 40K when the following hand came up. I had J9s and I made it to the flop cheap (for more than 5, but not a ton). The antes were about 500 at this point and the flop came down K T 8 with two spades. My lone opponent bet out 10,000 into the pot of about 10,000 and I decided to go for it. So I moved all in for something like 35K. He called me with AT of spades! Whoops! The turn was an ace, but the river was a queen and I was up to 77K!

At that point I started dreaming big, but I was done in soon after by a hand I might have misplayed or at the very least could have played differently.

I had about 60K, got 88 and made it about 4K to go. I got reraised to 10K and I called. The flop came down 2 3 4, I checked, my opponent bet 15K and I went all in. He thought for a little bit and called me with 99. No miracles and that was it. When I got reraised preflop it felt like a big pair and I feel like maybe I could have check folded the flop. Of course if he has 77 I feel like a genius so who knows.

I finished 153rd which paid $376. Not off the charts by any means, but it felt good to make the money.

A Big 4 days of SCOOP Action

2010-05-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

Brick city in the Mixed hold'em and the 7-card stud. Not much to tell. If you want a little more detail you can look back at my twitter updates.

At 11 PT Friday I have $162 NLH with antes from the start and I might play $55 limit Omaha 8 at 3.

On Saturday I have $215 triple shootout in the morning and then $22 and $215 limit turbo (5-minute limits) at 5 PT.

On Sunday we're back with $215 NLH "big antes" (not sure exactly what that means) in the morning and $215 NLH in the afternoon

Monday is $162 PL hold'em/PLO at 11 am, and maybe $11 and $109 with rebuys turbo at 5 pm.

Tuesday is going to be an off day with 5 days of SCOOP after that.

It only takes one good one to make this whole thing a big success.

Wednesday's Action

2010-05-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today I have $215 half Limit hold'em, half NL hold'em which is underway, with about 900 entrants. The action is 6 handed, so this one is right in my wheelhouse (whatever that means).

At 3 PT I have $320 Stud. I've actually played a fair amount of Stud (50 times more than your typical online poker pro) so I like my chances in that one too.

I'm ready for a SCOOP victory!

The Race - Days 3,4

2010-05-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

These Carbon Poker games are making me crazy! For some reason I'm not playing well in them. Many times at the end of a hand I ask myself "why the hell did I do that?"

I have played in all kind of limit poker games. After a couple million hands I feel like I've played just about every type of opponent you could face. But some weak players are easier for me to beat than others. The players easiest to beat are the ones who play too tight and are predictable. That's not how the games play on Carbon.

The Carbon games are really loose with lots of multiway action and frequent raising and reraising. The players are much more showdown bound than their AP counterparts and while in the long run I know I'm going to crush them (because they suck!), I can't just go on autopilot and use my standard plays. I have to do things like check when I miss the flop (gasp!) or check when I miss the turn (double gasp!).

My default when I raise preflop and am only facing one opponent is to fire the flop and the turn (and often the river too) whether I have it or I don't. It makes it tough for my opponents to put me on a hand and if we both miss the flop (which is the most likely thing to happen) then I usually win. You might think that players would catch on to this and start coming after me with nothing, but it takes balls to bluff hard enough to be effective and of course some of the time I have a good hand. After you crash face first into a real hand with a total bluff it's really hard to summon the courage to try another one right away.

Anyway, these fuckers on Carbon Poker seem to be calling me down left and right no matter what they have so I need to change my tactics a little bit. It's not hard, I just need to be explicitly conscious of what I'm doing.

With all that bitching you'd think I was getting killed, when I'm actually just about even. I just feel like I should be winning more.

As far as the race itself I've earned 9,000 points in 4 days. In order to make it through level 13 of the race and pick up $5,000 in prizes I need to make it to 75,250. I think that's my target right now, since I'm way behind pace to make it to the next level which is 125,000. Actually I need to step it up a little to just make it to the 75K mark, but I think I have it in me.

In other news, I'm still beating the shit out of the players on Absolute Poker. I'm +$3,000 or so this month on AP in 2,000 hands of action.

SCOOP Badugi and Heads Up Matches Recap

2010-05-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Badugi tournament was interesting, but not profitable.

One of the things that is frustrating about badugi is that your hand doesn't often improve that often. In hold'em the best hand you can start with is one pair, and you only have two of the seven cards that go into making a showdown hand.

In Badugi if you have a playable hand it means you have 3/4 of or your entire showdown hand already. If you have A23 (the best possible draw) - let's say it's one club, one diamond, one heart - then the only cards that improve your hand are the 4-K of spades. That's only 10 cards out of the remaining 49 in the deck. Clearly starting out with a made 4 card hand is a huge advantage.

In the end I played for about 4 hours, but never got my starting stack of 5K over 7K. $162 out the window in that one.

I got much closer in the heads up matches. We started that tournament with 2,048 players. It takes 3 match wins to make the money and 11 to win the tournament. Somehow it seems like it shouldn't be that hard to only beat 11 guys.

In my first match my opponent was not great. I'd say under these conditions I could beat him 7 or 8 times out of 10. We went back and forth for a long time and while I was ahead almost the whole time it took 120 hands for me to finish him off. In the end he got his money in good with JJ against my 77, but I hit a 7 on the river to win the match.

In match #2 my opponent was much better. I'd say we were very evenly matched. After 82 hands we got it all in (I had him significantly covered) with a small pair for him and A9 for me. A nine came on the river and I was on to match #3.

Match #3 came to an end much quicker. About 10 hands in I got dealt AKs. He raised, I reraised, he popped it again and I put him all in. He called me with 88 and I missed. I still had 1,000 chips to his 9,000 and actually got it back to 2,500 when I got it all in with AJ vs 55. If I win that pot we are back to even. Instead I was out the door, just short of the money.

After 13 tournaments in the FTOPS and SCOOP my $7,500 bankroll is at $6,183.

The Race - Day 2

2010-05-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

I was mostly focused on tournament on race day 2, but I did manage 2,100 points, which was enough to finish the 2,000 point milestone 4 and get most of the way through the 2,500 point milestone 5.

Once I get through milestone 5 I will have made $67.50 from the race which is of course total bullshit. But significant prizes are right around the corner.

As far as the game play goes these Carbon poker players are making me crazy! On AP I know everybody and have notes on them all. I don't have a feel for the field on Carbon yet. I'm getting a handle on it, but it's taking longer than I'd hoped.

The thing that's throwing me off is some of the players are pretty good and the rest are incredibly bad but in a very aggressive way. I'm taking a lot of weird bad beats which I know is a good thing in the long run, but tough in the short run.

I hope today is a good one!

Monday SCOOP Plan

2010-05-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow in the morning is 6 max NLH with rebuys. The medium stakes is $55 with rebuys which is nothing special and the high stakes is $530 with rebuys and is a little too steep. 1% chance of my playing either of those.

At 2 PT is limit badugi which I'm about 85% to play. For those of you who don't know what badugi is, let me give you a quick run down. The way it works is you get 4 cards and then there is a round of betting with blinds just like in hold'em. Instead of a flop there is a draw where you can throw away cards from your hand and get new ones. Instead of a turn there is another draw, and instead of a river there is another draw.

The goal of the game is to get the four lowest cards you can with all four suits represented. A 2 3 4 with four different suits is the best possible hand. If you make a pair or if you have two cards that are the same suit then you can only use three of your cards to make your hand. Any four card hand (ie one with four different ranks and suits) beats any three card hand.

Of course if you're comparing 3 card hands to each other the lowest one wins (IE 5677 beats 3389).

Sometime you'll only be able to use two cards to make a hand if you have for example two hearts and two spades in you hand or two pair or three spades and a club. Any three card hand beats any two card hand. Similarly any 1 card hand loses to everything.

A little confusing, but not once you get the hang of it! We'll see what I can do.

Sunday, Shitty Sunday.

2010-05-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

I won't leave you in suspense. 4 tournaments, 4 bricks.

In the first event which was SCOOP #1 I went down the tubes with AA. At one point I had my starting stack of 10K up to 15K, but was back down to 10k when the following hand came up.

The blinds were 150/300 and my opponent made it 600 under the gun. I reraised to 1,500 and he called. The flop came down 8 3 2 all clubs and I had the ace of clubs. He checked I bet 1,800 and he put me all in with 44 (with the 4 of clubs). 4 on the turn, no club, ace or 5 on the river and that was it. That was a very frustrating hand.

The second tournament was the FTOPS knockout. I did bust two players and picked up $80 in bounties. I don't know if I played this hand poorly, but I would have won a huge pot if I played it differently. We started that one with 5,000 chips and I was up to almost 15K when I got dealt QQ. I made it 600 to go and got called by the button and the small blind. The flop came down 9 high with two spades. I bet the pot which was 2,000, the button who had about 10K left called and the small blind moved all in for about 8K.

When the button smooth called me preflop I was thinking it could easily be AA or KK, and after he called my bet on the flop I couldn't think of what he could have that I could beat. Add in the other player raising us both and I thought it was time to bail out. It turns out the button had TT (he called the raise) and the other player had 87 of spades. The turn was a red ten and the river was a red queen. ACK!

I got it all the way up to 22K before coming back to earth. I drizzled away about 6K. Then with blinds of 250/500 the small blind raised to 1,500 and I put him all in for 10,000 with A9s. He called with AQ and I was down to 6,500.

On my final hand I had about 8,000 and went all in vs a raise to 1,500. I had KQs (which was a little thin given my opponents position) and he called me with AJ. The flop came with an A and a J. While the turn gave me a flush draw and some hope, the river was a blank.

That tournament felt like a wasted opportunity.

In SCOOP #2 I got KK twice, was able to reraise twice, but had to fold on A high flops after getting resistance twice. On my final hand I had about 5,500 and got dealt AQ in the small blind. I raised to 600 and got called. THe flop came down 6 7 3 and I bet out 1,200. My opponent put me all in. Given his stack size, my stack size and the flop texture I felt like his raise was total bullshit. I called and he showed me 89 which was more than I gave him credit for. The river came a 9 and that was it.

The FTOPS main event was also a wasted opportunity. Early on I made a straight on the turn when a player with KK got cute before the flop and then checked a set of kings on the flop. When I made my straight on the turn he bet I raised and he called. On the river he just blew all in, I called and took him out. I had my starting stack of 7,500 up to 16,000 after that one.

Later I won a few small pots, and then took out a short stack who went all in with AK vs my 55. I made a successful bluff at a big pot and found myself with 35,000 chips and in the top 100 of the 3,000 remaining players (we started with about 4,500).

Even after a few miscues I was in 429th of 2,300. Then I let someone double through me when I overplayed 99 and they had JJ. After that one I had 7k left and by that time the blinds were 250/500. I never recovered.

Update

2010-05-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

Brick city in my first two tournaments of the day. Full details coming later.

The Race - Day 1

2010-05-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

I ended up earning about 2,800 points on Day 1 of my quest to beat the shit out of Carbon poker's Race promotion. Coupled with day 0's 700 points I knocked out out the 250, 500, and 1,000 point milestones and got most of the way to the 2,000.

I found out a little bit of bad news about carbon poker in general. I thought I'd paid $350 in rake to get my 3,500 points, but because of my 35% rakeback deal I only generate points at 65% of the normal pace. I guess the good news is I paid over $500 in rake so when I got my daily rakeback payment I got close to $200 which was 35% more than I expected.

I didn't have a great day in the games losing $700 or so after being up $500 early, but there were two $10/$20s and two $5/$10's at one point which is promising.

The Race isn't going to be a huge as I thought, but it's still worth thousands of dollars and will be great motivations to get me working hard.

Big Sunday Action!

2010-05-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

The FTOPS winds down today with $256 knockout, and the $640 main event while the SCOOP kicks off with $216 no limit 6-max and a standard $215 no limit hold'em.

SCOOP #1 is underway and looking at the structure this thing is going to take forever! 10,000 chips to start, 20 minute levels and blinds starting at 25/50, then 30/60, then 40/80, then 50/100 and so on. I'm thinking 6 or 7 hours to make the money and maybe 15-18 to win.

I registered late so I've only played 15 hands, but the tournament is an hour underway and I'm up to 13,830 after taking out someone who way overplayed a hand. I had about 9k and raised to 240 with TT. He moved all in for 4,000 which was clearly not a big hand. I snap called him, he showed me A9 and I managed to dodge an ace.

6,783 players to start, with a 1st place prize of $203,493 and the edge of the money at 1,020th place which pays $310.

Starting now (11 PT) is the Knockout on fulltilt. The FTOPS main event goes off at 3 PT and SCOOP #2 starts at 2.

The Race - Day 0

2010-04-30T23:04:00.000-07:00

I took advantage of the fact that I'm on the west coast and played a little bit tonight on Carbon poker after the day changed over and it became May on Carbon time. Inexplicably, Carbon is on Central time! WTF is that about! When I logged on at 9 pacific ready to go I found out that I'd have to wait another hour to get started.

The good news is I played a few hundred hands and the games were fantastic. Granted it's Friday night, but all the regulars are there on Pokerstars and AP so I'm guess I'll see some of these jokers again.

I got off to a terrible start and my $1,700 Carbon roll was down to $700 at one point. But with a little luck and after I figured out that these clowns are all a bunch of whackjobs (think raising 24 or capping Q9s vs 2 players out of position), I got back to even before calling it a night.

I picked up 700 points which isn't a ton, but it's a start. Tomorrow I'm really going to put the heat on and see what I can do.

"The Race" Big Bucks for Me?

2010-04-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

Carbon Poker (Carbon Poker? - yes Carbon Poker - not surprised you haven't heard of it) is running a promotion in May called "The Race." It is going to be a big deal for me.

I heard about Carbon Poker through the website that does my rakeback (rakebacknation.com) and I opened an account there in January with the hopes of getting some unqualified people to play head up against me. At the time there were very few if any limit games going on the site. But in April Carbon joined up with a bunch of poker rooms that were being run by various sports betting websites and now they have some actual traffic (those of you who read my tweets will know that I took $1,000 off two $10/$20 games there yesterday).

So what is this race all about? Well, like all poker websites carbon has a points system (and a VIP system with levels like pokerstars). The way it works is for every dollar you pay in rake you get 10 points. Pay $100 in rake, get 1,000 points.

The race is essentially 15 point milestones that each come with a cash prize. The lowest is 250 points and pays $2.50. As soon as you earn 250 points (or in other words pay $25 in rake) you get $2.50 in your account. The next level is 500. After you earn ANOTHER 500 points you get $5. Another 1,000 and you get $10 more dollars. There are actually 15 levels with the top level being 100,000 points which pays an insane $15,000.

They call it the race, because there are only a certain number of prizes at each level. The first level has 1,500, $2.50 prizes. The next level has 1,250 $5 prizes and so on.

Here is a chart with all of the levels (sorry this chart looks like shit! It didn't past very well!).

Level Points Prize Total Prizes
1 250 $2.50 1,500
2 500 $5 1,250
3 1,000 $10 1,000
4 2,000 $20 700
5 2,500 $30 600
6 3,000 $40 500
7 3,500 $70 400
8 5,000 $125 300
9 7,500 $200 200
10 10,000 $250 125
11 15,000 $750 75
12 25,000 $1,000 50
13 50,000 $2,500 25
14 75,000 $5,000 10
15 100,000 $15,000 5

So what are my chances of hitting all 15 levels? I'd say less than 1%. If you add it all up I'd have to pay $30,000 in rake to hit the top level. I've actually done that much in a month before. In fact in December 2008 on my way to Supernova Elite I paid about $45,000 in rake. But that was on pokerstars playing 6 $10/$20 games, many hours a day, 30 of 31 days that month (I lost over $10,000 that month). There just aren't that many games on Carbon poker and I don't want to torture myself like that again.

Last month I raked about $11,000 on AP and Cake combined without working too hard at it. That's kind of my baseline. I know I'm going to have to play $5/$10 games and even $3/$6 games which is going to be boring, but it should be worth it.

If I can rake $12,500 I'll pick up $5,002 in bonus money from this promotion alone. I'll also get a $1,000 bonus from rakeback nation when for raking more than $5,000 in a month and I'll get back 35% of whatever rake I pay as part of my rakeback deal. Add that up and it's $10,377!

But wait! There's more! If that wasn't enough Carbon poker has a ridiculously complex VIP system with various levels and rewards! A quick set of dirty calculations has me picking up an extra $2,000 by cashing in the points I earn and hitting other goofy ass milestones and parameters that they've set up.

So I'm going to pay $12,500 in rake and get back 99% of it. That's my plan.

If I go buck nuts and make it to $20,000 in rake which would be enough to hit level 14 of "The Race" I'll get about $23,000 in bonuses which is 115% rakeback!

Three things are going to hold me back and make it tough to do as much as I want. First and foremost is a potential lack of games. Right now there is one $10/$20 and three $3/$6 games. Nothing bigger or in between. If that line up was available 24/7 I think I could do it. Typically there has been at least one $10/$20 and one $5/$10 going the past few days with smattering of lower games. I'm hoping that I'll be able to help start more games since I'm willing to play heads up.

The second thing that's going to hold me back is money. Right now I have $1,700 in Carbon Poker and it's going to take me a few days to get more in. The only way for me to get money in there is through ewalletexpress.com. I can send money to ewallet from my bank, but I have to pay them 8.8% of whatever I deposit. Not a great option. The other way is to cashout from AP or Cake to ewallet and then send it over to carbon. I've started the process, but it's going to take a few days. So if I run bad at the start I could blow though my $1,700 and have to wait a day or two to resume play. Working for me in this regard is Carbon pays rakeback every day and I'll get the race prizes as soon as I earn them.

Third, the SCOOP. I might trim down my SCOOP schedule, but I'm still going to be playing one or two tournaments a day for two weeks.

Actually there is a 4th concern which is minute, but still there. And that it that I could have some competition for the prizes. I don't see anyway for 25 people to rake $12,500 on Carbon poker. There are hundreds who do that on pokerstars and fulltilt, but not on Carbon. I'm going to log on at minute 1 and start play to make sure I don't get jacked out of the first few prizes which I'm sure will be hit by the limiting number of players pretty quickly.

May is going to be a looooooong month, but I'm hoping it's a profitable one! Let's hope I have the mental fortitude to make this happen!

Early SCOOP Schedule

2010-04-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

I bricked in the cashout FTOPS without winning a single pot. My last hand was QQ vs AA. BOO!

After 7 tournaments my FTOPS/SCOOP Bankroll is up to $7753 from $7,500. Not great but as they say, better than a kick in the nuts!

I'm taking today off with plans of playing little if at all on Friday and Saturday so I can rest up for playing 15 days is a row.

Here the first week of my SCOOP schedule (I might add or subtract one or two tournaments). Man it looks like a lot! I copy and pasted from the web so all of the times are eastern.

May 2 13:00 NL Hold’em [6-max]$215
May 2 17:00 NL Hold’em [2-day] $215
May 3 14:00 NL Hold’em [6-Max, Rebuys] $55
May 3 17:00 FL Badugi $162
May 3 20:00 PL Omaha [Turbo, 1R1A] Low: $11 Med: $109
May 4 14:00 PL 5-Card Draw $109
May 4 17:00 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up Match Play] $162
May 5 14:00 Mixed Hold’em [6-Max] Low: $22 Med: $215
May 6 17:00 NL Hold’em [Knockout] $265
May 7 14:00 NL Hold’em [Ante Up!] $162
May 7 17:00 FL Omaha Hi-Lo $55
May 7 20:00 NL Hold’em [2X Chance, Turbo] Low: $16.50 Med: $162
May 8 14:00 NL NL Hold’em - Triple Shootout $215
May 8 17:00 PL Omaha [6-Max, Rebuys] $16.50
May 8 20:00 FL Hold’em [Turbo] Low: $22 Med: $215

Sunday is going to be a big day. On top of the two SCOOP events I've also decided to fire in FTOPS event #28 $256 NLH knockout 6-max and the $640 FTOPS main event ($3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool for that one - 1st should be over $500,000!!). Cancel all of your plans and start your laptops charging now!

$50/$100 Beat Down

2010-04-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

First of all thanks to whoever posted the comment on the Cashout tournament strategy. That makes perfect sense. Not sure I'll be able to resist the temptation to cashout, but I'll hold out as long as I can.

While I was playing the HORSE tournament I was also playing cash games. Normally, I find myself in the $10/$20 and $15/$30 limit games on absolute poker, but from time to time I will sometimes venture higher if conditions are right.

Yesterday I looked at a $50/$100 6-max game that had 5 players sitting at it. 3 were average, $15/$30 players who are pretty much break even, one was a solid $30/$60+ regular and the other was a total fish who I've played before and just dumps money at any limit. The seat open was to the left of the fish and I have visions of his stack pouring into mine.

On the other hand $50/$100 is a terrifying limit. It's not hard to drop 5 grand if you lose your composure and it is 5 times my normal limit. But I've been playing great lately so I decided to give it a shot. Here is a recap of a session was very short but went perfectly (the highlight was hand #14).

On hand #1 I got dealt KQ suited in the big blind. The under the gun player raised, I called and the flop came Q high. I check raised him and he three bet me. The turn was an ace and we both checked. I bet the river and he folded. A very normal pot. +$272 so far.

On hand #2 I got dealt AJ in the small blind. I three bet the cutoff, flopped an ace and won with a bet. +$469.

Hand #3 94o.
Hand #4 I raised pocket jacks and everyone folded. I avoided the temptation to say "Aw man!" and instead thought "hey I just made $75 in 2 seconds!"
Hand #5 T5o.
Hand #6 Q8o.
Hand #7 62s in the big blind. folded to a raise

Hand #8 I three bet a button raise with 77 and won with a bet on a Q high flop. +$691 for the session.

Hand #9 T5o
Hand#10 J8o
Hand #11 A7o (almost raised this one but opted to fold)
Hand #12 53o
Hand #13 62o

In hand #14 the cutoff raised and I called in the small blind with QT of hearts. The big blind came along too and the flop was 7 6 3 with one heart. The big blind and I both called a bet of $50 on the flop and the turn came down the ace of hearts giving me a flush draw. I decided to go for the check raise semibluff thinking that if my opponent bet, but didn't have an ace I could win with a checkraise. And even if I did get called I could still hit my flush. Like clock work the cutoff bet $100, I made it $200 and the big blind folded.

Not like clockwork my opponent called and the river came the 3 of diamonds. YUCK! But in a moment of sheer bravado I fired another $100 into the pot. My opponent thought and thought for what seemed like an hour and I couldn't help but explicitly think "Holy shit there's $947 out there! I have a god damn thousand bucks riding on this guy calling or folding. I'd have to be nuts playing in this game. What in the world am I doing!?"

And then he folded. "I am the king of all who play poker! Of course he was going to fold. No one would ever put me on a check raise semi bluff!" +$1,138 for the session at that point.

Hand #15 I raised with AJ and got called by the fishy player that I'd been targeting in the first place who was in the big blind. The flop came down 8 5 4 and he called my continuation bet. The turn was an ace (DING!) and he bet into me (DING DING!) I raised him and he called. The rive paired the 5 and he folded when I bet. +$1,510.

In hand #16 I raised A8o and got called by the big blind. The flop came down KK2 and he folded when I fired out $50. +$1,632.

Hand #17 J3.
Hand #18 K3.

And that was it. Maybe I should have kept going, but I'm not above a hit and run every now and then.

I have been on a killer run lately. I've had 6 winning days in a row and the worst of those was +$800. I hope I can keep it up!

Two Tournaments Today

2010-04-28T11:34:00.001-07:00

Event #16 $216 7-game mixed games is underway. This is a mix of all the HORSE games plus NL hold'em and PLO.

At 3 I have $216 "cashout." I've never played a cashout tournament before, but here is how I understand that it works. Of my buy in $16 goes to the house, $100 goes to the main prize pool and $100 goes to the cashout prize pool. At any time, but only one time, during the tournament you can "cashout" half of your chips and get paid for their value. For example. If you start the tournament with 5,000 chips on hand 1 you could sell off 2,500 chips for $100 and be left with 2,500 chips. Or if you had 20,000 you could sell off half for $400 and be left with 10,000. I'm not sure what the optimal strategy is, but I hope I'll know the time to cashout when I see it.

FTOPS Event #15 ($535 HORSE) Recap

2010-04-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

I liked the structure that full tilt set up for this tournament. Often times you start with so many chips and such small stakes that the first few rounds feel like a major waste of time. Of course when I'm putting up five hundred bucks for one tournament I want some play, but better to start with the stakes a little higher and make the blind increases a little more gradual. I think this tournament had the right balance.

We got 442 entrants which was 58 short of what full tilt needed to meet the $250,000 prize pool guarantee that they'd posted. In the end they had to add just over $13,000 to the prize pool creating a $30 per player overlay.

I got off to a good start. We began with 4,000 chips and my first big pot came up playing Stud. I stared the hand with three big clubs and there was heavy action on 3rd street. I bricked on 4th street, but caught another club on 5th. At this point my opponents went nuts going 3 bets one with only a pair of jacks and the other with I don't know what. I made my flush on 6th street and check raised the pair of jacks. Both players called. On the river I bet, one player folded and the other called me with bare jacks. That took me to 5,500.

I got half of a big Omaha pot a few minutes later when I made the nut low and was up to 6,400. But that was my peak.

I got totally blown up in razz. I had two hands back to back where I was ahead on 5th street (not way ahead, but ahead), got heavy action and caught two bricks.

A little while later in the Stud hi-lo I had a hand where I started with A63 and caught another ace and another 6. My opponent who made a low on 6th street also made a flush on the river and scooped me.

My final demise came in hold'em. I raised with QT of hearts and got 3 bet. The flop came down ace high with two hearts and I check called. The turn was a queen and I check raised. My opponent three bet me all in with AK, and I didn't hit. I finished 295th of 442.

My 2010 WSOP Schedule is Set!

2010-04-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

I was worried that I might have to pass on this years WSOP because of cost. But happily I have been on a tear in the limit cash games. While I've had a few $1,500+ losing days this month, I had one day that was +$4,400, and a half dozen that were in the +$2,000 range.

What gives me the most confidence is I made a few significant changes to my tactics after taking a massive beating. I took a day to really look at some of the plays I'd been making and since I've made those changes I've been killing.

If I get my doors blown off in the SCOOP AND I back up a little in the cash games it might be a little tight playing all the WSOP events that I want to play. But I booked my hotel rooms so if I can make it work I'm going to.

Here is my plan! I'm getting to town on June 8th and staying at the Rio for 5 nights. Then I move over to Aria for 4 nights. I got 3 nights free at each hotel and the other 3 nights were $100 each. Not bad for RIO during the WSOP and the newest casino is Vegas!

Here is the schedule of tournaments!

June 9th - $2,000 limit hold'em
June 10th - $1,500 7-card stud
June 11th - $2,500 limit hold'em 6 handed
June 12th - $1,000 no limit hold'em
June 13th - Rest/Party with the wife!
June 14th - $2,500 No Limit Hold'em 6 handed
June 15th - Rest
June 16th - $1,500 HORSE

Total Cost: $11,000.

This is a great schedule for me and I'm pumped that these tournaments lined up the way they did. I like my chances playing limit hold'em and REALLY like my chances playing 6 handed limit. Also working to my advantage is the 6 max limit event is the only tournament that day. In year's past it's gone off at 5 pm on a day when there is a no limit tournament at noon which draws off a lot of the players. This year if you want to play something that day you're playing limit. Hopefully I can nail some of the NL players who think they can play limit.

The 7 card stud tournament is sure to be populated with old times, codgers and your grandpa. I played this event last year and was shocked by the level of play. If I can get a little help for the deck, I'll do great in this one.

Last year they had one $1,000 no limit tournament and it got 6,000 entrants! So this year they have one every weekend. They are sure to be populated with first time WSOP players and fish.

One of my WSOP cashes was $2,500 6 max no limit so I'm going to go for another one.

And of course, HORSE! Last year I finished 28th of 450 in the $3,000 HORSE against the toughest field you're ever seen. I always like my chances at HORSE.

Lastly there is a $10,000 limit event on the 15th. If I make a final table or have a solid five figure cash of some kind I'll probably play that baby as well.

I'll be looking to sell off about half my action. Of course I'l be in touch with my usual backers, but if you haven't backed me before and you want a piece, let me know.

More on the WSOP as the time gets closer. I'm getting fired up already!

Giddy Up!

2010-04-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

$535 HORSE tonight at 6 pm PT! I'm taking this one to the house! The HORSE house! To the Barn! Look for updates on twitter.

Sunday Tournament Recap

2010-04-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I played 4 tournaments and made the money in 3 of them. The first was $129 Knockout FTOPS, and I went broke right away.

The second was a $55 tournament on pokerstars that started with over 8,000 players and a first place prize of $44,000! I finished about 500th.

The third tournament was a special tournament on pokerstars called the "turbo takedown." This tournament goes off once a month, the buy in is 3,000 FPPs and it has a prize pool of $1,000,000 regardless of the number of entrants. In this case we had 18,000 entrants. I went on a monster tear like I can't ever remember having. It started with beating AA with AK when the flop came with TWO kings. After that I took out 4 players in about 10 minutes! When we were down to 6,000 or so players I was in first place with a stack that was 7 times average! I fizzeled a little down the stretch, but finished around 700th which paid $170.

Lastly there was the pokerstars Sunday Million. I want to keep this post short so let's just say that I finished 783rd out of 8776 and got paid $421.

I planned to play the $322 NLH FTOPS event #9, but after 5 or 6 hours of steady play I didn't think I had it in me to stay focused long enough to go deep.

The knockout and Sunday Million were part of my FTOPS/SCOOP package. My backers will be happy to hear that I'm ahead $1,220 after four tournaments.

My Near Future Schedule (With Times!)

2010-04-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

Since I did so well in Event #1 I'm adding a few more FTOPS tournaments to the schedule. My original plan was to play 3 FTOPS tournaments as a warm up for the SCOOP. But instead of 3 it looks like it's going to be more like 5 or 6.

Today I'm going to play three tournaments:
1) $129 NL hold'em Knock out which is event #7. For every player I bust I get $20. Start Time - 11 PT.
2) $322 No Limit Hold'em which is Event #9. Start Time - 3 PT.
3) $215 Pokerstars Sunday Milion. Start Time - 1:30 (Backers you're in for this one too. I'm adding it to the FTOPS/SCOOP package).

I'll probably register late for all of these and skip the first few mind numbing levels.

Here are other events and the percentage that I'll be playing them:
1) $535 HORSE at 6 PT on Tuesday (99%)
2)$216 7-game mixed games at 11 PT on Wednesday (99%)
3)$216 NL hold'em "cashout" at 3 PT on Wednesday (50%)
4)$216 NL hold'em 6-max at 11 PT on Friday ((35%)
5)$256 NL knockout 6 max at 11 PT on Sunday May 2nd (50%)
6 $640 NL hold'em "Main Event" on Sunday May 2nd (30%)

The SCOOP starts May 2nd. More on my precice SCOOP schedule later.

FTOPS Event #6 ($216 Rush Poker) Recap

2010-04-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

This tournament was a ton of fun. Due to the format where you can look at a hand, fold it, and instantly get a new one I played 122 hands in about 23 minutes. Compare that to the 500 hands in 8 hours I played the day before in event #1 and I was getting 318 hands per hour playing rush, vs 63 an hour with the standard format.

There were roughly 1,900 entrants and although I only lasted 23 minutes I beat 1,000 of them. In the end I had my starting stack of 2,000 up to 2,500 with blinds in the range of 100/200. The button made a standard raise, I moved all in with 99 from the small blind, he called me with JJ and I didn't hit.

Rush Poker

2010-04-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post FTOPS event #6 is Rush Poker. This is new thing so let me explain it to those of you who don't know about it.

I've never played a rush poker tournament, but I have played a little bit of the cash games. The way it works is you join a large pool of players (something like 100-500) all playing the same game and stakes. When you start you get plopped down at a table and dealt a hand. If you choose to "quick fold" you instantly get sent to a new table and get dealt a new hand. To the other players at the first table you appear to still be there waiting to act. If you get crappy cards you can just fold, fold, fold and instantly get more hands at new tables.

Of course you're facing a different lineup of players each hand so there isn't much playing the player going on unless you get to know the regulars.

In this FTOPS tournament there will probably be a couple thousand players to start and it's a turbo tournament. That means 2,000 chips to start and 3 minute levels. While the blinds start at 15/30, 30 minutes into the tournament they'll be at 150/300. The whole tournament will be over in a couple hours.

I'm definitely going to play and will tweet updates when I can. I should be interesing if nothing else.

FTOPS Event #5 and #6

2010-04-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

Event #5 is NLH $109 with rebuys, and event #6 is $216 "Rush" poker turbo. The first one is at 1 PT and the second is at 3 PT. Right now I'm not sure if I'm going to play neither, one or both, but I wanted to give my backers and my fan(s) a heads up.

FTOPS XVI Event #1 ($216 NLH) Recap

2010-04-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

I got the schedule a little mixed up and wasn't expecting to start the FTOPS for another day, but when I woke up I decided to see what was going on. When I saw that event #1 was a standard $216 NLH tournament I decided to log on and give it a shot.

We started with 3,673 players with 5,000 chips each. I won a few pots early and had 8K or 9K when the following hand came up. The blinds were something like 40/80 and my opponent raised to 250 from early position. I was on the button with TT and I made it 900 to go.

The raiser called and the flop came down Q 9 5 with two spades. He checked and I bet 900 which was about half the pot and instantly my opponent went all in for 3,500. I had about 7K left in my stack so I wouldn't be out altogether if I called and lost, but the most likely hand for him to have there is a queen. In the end I made what looking back was a terrible call, but it turned out my opponent had AK of spades, missed, and I was up to 13K chips.

The next big hand came up a good while later, although my stack was still around 13K. The blinds were up to 250/500 and I made it 1,500 to go from the button with AJ off. The big blind who had 25K chips instantly pushed all in. I knew this was total bullshit and snapped called. He had QT off, I flopped an ace, and was up to 29K.

At that point there were 950 players left, 540 spots paid, and the average stack was around 20K.

I worked my way up to 45K with pure aggression and that's how much I had when we made the money. 540th paid $300.

After taking it up to 53K, I'd fallen back to 30K when the next big hand came up. The blinds were 1K/2K and the under the gun player limped in which was very suspicious. I figured it was likely AA. I had Q9 in the small blind and fired in another 1,000 hoping to hit the flop big and double up.

I didn't really hit the flop big, but I got some of it. The flop was 6 7 8 giving me an open ended straight draw. I checked, the big blind checked and the limper bet 3,000. At this point I talked myself out of my original read. "It doesn't have to be aces" I thought somewhat foolishly. Restraint has never been one of my strengths and I decided to be bold and move all in. My opponent didn't have pocket aces...he had pocked kings! ACK! Happily I hit a 5 on the turn making my straight and taking my stack to 62K.

I drifted up and down a little and the caught a break busting a player who had 55 when I had 88. That took me to 77K.

That's when I smashed face first into AA with JJ. I was down to about 5K when the big blind was 4K and the ante was 500 a hand. I was in last place about as broke as you could be without actually being on empty. I folded three hands and had 3,100 left when I got dealt A5. I got it all in and won. And then got the next hand all in and won. All of a sudden I was back to 30K with some hope.

Two hands later someone short moved all in with 56s and I called with A9. They missed and I was up to 67K! I'd increased my stack by 20 times in 4 hands!

One round later I got AK suited and was able to reraise all in vs AQ. Now I had 117K. What a comeback! But that wasn't the end.

I got ground down to 70K when I got dealt JTs in the big blind. It got folded around to the small blind who had 250K. He moved all in, but I thought he might move all in with just about anything here given that the blinds were 5K/10K with a 1K ante (there was 25K in the pot already) and I had the perfect size stack to attack. So I called. He showed me A3 which was more than I expected. I bricked the flop and the turn, but hit a ten on the river putting my back to 140K.

Then I got REALLY lucky. I had a little over 100K and a player made it 25K or so to go from late position. I had A8 suited and decided to shove. He called me with A9. Whoops!

The flop came down 6 7 9 giving him a pair and me a straight draw. Sadly the turn was an 8 taking me from 8 outs to win to 8 outs to chop and 2 outs to win. But the river was another 8! HA! I was up to 225K.

But this is where the story ends. I wish I could say the insanity that took me from 3,100 to 225,000 kept up. Instead I got ground down and the blinds went up and I ended up moving in from the button with 66 and got called by the big blind's AA.

I finished 38th out of 3,673 which paid $1,575. First place was $134,000 and I wasn't that far away from the final table, but this result was not bad for a tournament I almost didn't play. If I'd gone broke when I had 3,100 chips I would have gotten paid $525.

It's Go Time!

2010-04-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

FTOPS starts today. $216 NLH. I'll be posting updates via twitter which will show up on the right ride of the blog. Full details will come later.

SCOOP 2010!

2010-04-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) starts May 2nd. It seems like much more than a year ago that I was cashing for $37,500 after finishing 4th in a $1,000 HORSE tournament with 444 entrants. Ahhhh the good old days.

The cool thing about the SCOOP is while there are 38 events there are actually three times that many tournaments since each event comes with a low, medium and high stakes variant. For example event #1 which stars at 13:00 ET and is 6 max NLH has a $22 buy in tournament, a $215 buy in tournament and a $2,100 buy in tournament all starting at the same time. If you want to check it out here is the full schedule.

Last year there were 22 or 23 events and I think I played all of the low stakes, and maybe 15 of the medium stakes, and 4 of the high stakes tournaments. This year since there are many more tournaments, I'm not coming in with the $15,000 SCOOP bankroll, and I probably won't have a mid five figure cash I don't expect to hit everything so hard.

Instead I'm going to put about $5,000 into play and my goal is to get that up to about $10,000 which will be enough to play the 5 or 6 WSOP events that I'd like to hit this summer.

After a quick glance at the schedule I see 17 low stakes tournaments that I plan to play (with buy ins totalling $685) and 14 mid stakes tournaments (with buy ins totalling $3,429). Of course if I do well I'll add in more of the medium stakes events. And if I do really well I'll play the $2,100 HORSE, the $3,150 8-game mixed event, and maybe the $5,200 6-max limit event.

The latest iteration of the FTOPS is going off just before the SCOOP. While I'm not going to play many of those tournaments I am going to play the $216 6-max limit, $535 HORSE and $216 7-game mixed games tournaments.

I feel like I'm due for a big win. I'll keep you posted.

Not Broke, Not Dead

2010-03-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

One of my regular comment posters asked yesterday if I was "broke, dead or both." I'm happy to say that I'm still breathing and playing poker every day.

The main reason for the lack of posts in the last month in a half is I've been trying to play as much as I can and at the end of the day more time in front of the computer to write a post hasn't fit into my time budget. I guess I didn't realize it had been a month and a half since my last post either.

I wish I could say that things have been going well, but they haven't. Actually it's more of a good news bad news situation. The bad news is I was ahead about $8,000 for the year in the middle of march (a VERY week number for 2+ months for me) and then I lost $7,000 over 5 days. Clearly that's bad news.

The good news is I've made some significant changes to my standard tactics and I think I'm back on track.

I knew I needed to change something, so I finally spent the time to download Pokertracker (the easy part) and get it working (the hard part). Pokertracker is a piece of software that records every hand you play and allows you to look at how much you've won and lost with different hands in different situations. If you want to know how many dollars per hand you won with A6 off suit in the cutoff (or any other hand in any other position) it will tell you.

Happily the websites save hand histories to your hard drive if you have a certain setting enabled. They don't save forever (there's another setting for how long they save), but when I got Pokertracker running it found about 125,000 hands from pokerstars and 20,000 hands from Absolute poker. That gave me a solid group of hands to look at and a few things stood out.

There were a few spots where I noticed that I was making more money with a lesser hand in the same situation. For example I'd be winning more with A8 off than with A8 suited or more with 88 than 99. Of course some of that could be sample size aberration, but more likely is I was misplaying those hands stronger. Specifically I know I was three betting (to thin) with A8s in spots where I'd just fold A8 off. Similarly with 88 I was treating it more like a small pair and playing 99 like a big pair (ie capping it vs two opponents or three betting it out of the big blind vs an early position raise).

In fact I was getting into the habit of calling or three betting KTs, KJs, JTs, QJs, and QTs against a solid player's raise. The games I play in are very aggressive and players have a wide range of starting hands that they are capable of raising, but I was taking it too far. These hands were costing me a fortune and since I've been MUCH more apt to just dump them I've felt much more in control and my results have been great.

Another thing I started doing is looking up all of my regular opponents on www.pokertableratings.com. While the database for this site is certainly not comprehensive (they've been tracking hands for about 2 years and I don't think they're catching them all), and I'm sure it's not 100% accurate it will give you an idea if the player you're up against is a winner, a loser or a break even player and since you can see how many hands they've tracked you can find out if you're up against a rookie or a regular. The best news about it is it's free.

I've gotten into the habit of looking up everyone who I've seen more than once and then making a note with their vital stats so I don't have to look them up again. In fact pokertableratings has a "PTR" score for every player. It's a 1 to 100 number that would be easy to put in a note. It doesn't seem that precise to me. Most people seem to fall in the 30's or 40's and they have Tom "Durrrr" Dwan as an 83 even though he's probably the best online cash game player in the world and is up $7,000,000 over 250,000 hands. But still use full.

The last bit of good news is that I have been working really hard in march so I should be getting a nice fat load of about $4,000 in rakeback on the 15th of April.

Looking a little farther into the future the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) comes back on May 2nd. More on that in a post coming soon.

Pounding Mr. Terrible

2010-02-17T12:28:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I ran into a fellow who was off the charts bad. The thing about players like that is they usually buy in short and when the go broke they give up. This guy bought in for $200, but reloaded 4 or 5 times before finally bailing out (He went through $1,000+ in less than half an hour playing limit $10/$20).

Anyone who plays poker can tell you about a time they played someone really terrible and thought with dollar signs in their eyes, "If I can get any kind of cards at all I'm going to kill this person!" Sometimes it's really frustrating playing against a terrible player. If you're against some joker who is going to call you down every time no matter what, the only way to beat them is to make the best hand. Of course if you make a few hands you'll destroy them, but if they get lucky a few times you'll want to pull your hair out.

Happily I got a fabulous run of cards against Mr. Terrible. I kicked his ass left and right and in one span of 8 hands I flopped two sets, got dealt AA, and made a flush. One of the sets was in a 4 way capped pot preflop as were the pocket aces and I won all of those pots at showdown with heavy action from Mr. terrible.

The hand with the flush was amazing. Look at how the hand played out.

Stage #1911311267: Holdem Normal $10/$20 - 2010-02-17 13:59:04.009 (ET) [ 2010-02-17 13:59:04 ]
Table: BELUGA Dr (Real Money) Seat #5 is the dealer
Seat 5 - KAON STRANGE ($205.50 in chips)
Seat 1 - BUCKEYE_BOB ($369 in chips)
Seat 2 - ACESSEDAI ($525.50 in chips)
Seat 3 - LIUHAMPTON ($506 in chips)
Seat 4 - BONSAIHUGGER ($442 in chips)
BUCKEYE_BOB - Posts small blind $5
ACESSEDAI - Posts big blind $10
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to ACESSEDAI [Ks 7s]
LIUHAMPTON - Folds
BONSAIHUGGER - Folds
KAON STRANGE - Raises $20 to $20
BUCKEYE_BOB - Folds
ACESSEDAI - Calls $10
*** FLOP *** [5s 6d 6s]
ACESSEDAI - Checks
KAON STRANGE - Bets $10
ACESSEDAI - Raises $20 to $20
KAON STRANGE - Raises $20 to $30
ACESSEDAI - Calls $10
*** TURN *** [5s 6d 6s] [9s]
ACESSEDAI - Checks
KAON STRANGE - Bets $20
ACESSEDAI - Raises $40 to $40
KAON STRANGE - Calls $20
*** RIVER *** [5s 6d 6s 9s] [10c]
ACESSEDAI - Bets $20
KAON STRANGE - Calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESSEDAI - Shows [Ks 7s] (Flush, king high)
KAON STRANGE - Mucks
ACESSEDAI Collects $222 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot($225) | Rake ($3)
Board [5s 6d 6s 9s 10c]
Seat 1: BUCKEYE_BOB (small blind) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 2: ACESSEDAI (big blind) collected Total ($222) HI:($222) with Flush, king high [Ks 7s - P:Ks,B:9s,P:7s,B:6s,B:5s]
Seat 3: LIUHAMPTON Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 4: BONSAIHUGGER Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 5: KAON STRANGE (dealer) HI: [Mucked] [4h 3d]

Do you see the call on the end! He called me with 4 high! If I have 23, 24, or 34 we split the pot. If I have any of the other 166 combinations of two cards I win. He just gave me $20 to see my cards. Amazing.

I went on to book a $1,300 win yesterday, put another $400 on it today and brought my streak of winning days to 5 in a row. Everything seems to be back on track.