I am very happy to report... that I have no tournaments to to write about!!!!
Just kidding, they weren't that much of a grind. I do enjoy the nuances of cash games much better mind you. So after being home for just over a full month, I've sunken back into my online grind. I'm sticking to 2-4 nlhe on PartyPoker, 1-2nlhe/plo on FullTilt (along with the major tournaments) and I may start up a little on Stars seeing how their big WCOOP is coming in September. Despite the financial benefits of Event #39...or the day Woo scooped me as I'm referring fondly to it as, I haven't changed any of my online bankrolls and am hardened on the fact that I need to grind through the limits one at a time, site by site. It'll make me stronger in the end and plus, I have to focus on learning still. So far both July and August have been great. I'm not playing nearly aggressive enough though. My goal is/was to be the most aggressive player at any limit I'm playing at and so far I'm not there. Like everything it's a learning curve.... thankfully it's one I'm winning on.
I may not really attack the blogging much until next tournament series or WSOP 08.... I find it a bit pompous to post my graphs or results in the cash games. Partly it's because I'm playing small and don't think it's really exciting to discuss and partly because grinding cash isn't that exciting unless it's crazy coolers or dramatic suckouts. Perhaps maybe cooler/suckout of the week type thing :)
Anyways... cross your fingers for online tournament success this year. I think one good scoop a year is what makes/breaks a year financially. Also, I plan to work this year for my old boss so I won't be spending near as much time on the cash games as I originally intended.
Anyways..! my apologies for the month hiatus. Hope everyone's enjoying the last piece of summer.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
World Series wrap-up.
Hi everyone, sorry for not being more frequent with updates this past week. With the exception of the $1500 H.O.R.S.E. event, I haven't played any of the remaining tournaments. Today I un-registered for the $10,000 Main Event that culminates the World Series of Poker. I decided it would be in my best interest not to play. There are a ton of reasons that led to this decision but basically, over the last 6 weeks, with the exception of event 39, I've run well below expectation in all of the tournaments I've played in. I've only made 3 day 2's of over 13 tournaments. Some of the mixed events I look back on and realize that I may not have won a single hand in any of them. I played much fewer cash games as I had originally intended but came out ahead live and down online, mostly due to a horrendous day-long session yesterday on PartyPoker. Either way, the combination of running below expectation, being burnt out from 6 weeks of not working out, bad food, bad sleeping patterns and long tournament days I don't feel I'm playing my best game and don't feel capable of making good decisions in the biggest tournament of the year. I don't want it to come off negative, it's a great tournament, I wish it was the first one of the series but I'm happy with my decision not to play and I'm looking forward to the last few days I'll spend here with Andrew and the crew, take a few days off and get back to the online cash games when I get home. Hopefully I'll put myself in a better situation to be successful down the road but I really feel like playing this one is a poor choice in my present state of mind. Best of luck to Andrew and everyone I know who's competing.
Overall it's been a very productive world series of poker. It's funny how 6 weeks of play can go so poorly but still be worthwhile in one deep tournament run. I guess that's the kicker of poker. So much negative, so little positive. Hopefully the positive will continue to outweigh the negative but as for now, it's all been a little too much. I applaud those who are able to keep a completely level outlook on the game and your life as a result. That level-headness through the variance upswings and downswings is truly where the skill lies in this game. It's a battle I'm determined to win in the future.
Overall it's been a very productive world series of poker. It's funny how 6 weeks of play can go so poorly but still be worthwhile in one deep tournament run. I guess that's the kicker of poker. So much negative, so little positive. Hopefully the positive will continue to outweigh the negative but as for now, it's all been a little too much. I applaud those who are able to keep a completely level outlook on the game and your life as a result. That level-headness through the variance upswings and downswings is truly where the skill lies in this game. It's a battle I'm determined to win in the future.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
PLO 8/better and Stud 8/better
So I've played two $1500 events since the No Limit Event I final tabled and performed quite poorly in both!. I think I lasted 6 levels in the PLO8/better but had very few cards to play and won very few pots. I don't think I ever crested 6000 chips. I did knock out Jeff Madsen, the 2005 player of the year. He's a young guy who plays extremely well and who I've had the opportunity to play with a few times now. In today's Stud 8/better I ran extremely cold and got scooped in 3 pots and was out in less than 2 hours. Here are the three hands.....(read ouch on all of them)
1. Me: Ks8s 2s -9s-Tc-7c-3h
Him: xxAh-Kd-Ac-8h-x
This hand started 3 handed but the other player crapped out on his high hand after the other player hit open aces. I decided that it was 50-50 whether this opponent was going low and made open aces and continued or made trips on 5th. Either way I had 3 shots to hit my flush and then going into 7th, any J or 6 also makes a straight which I felt would be good enough to scoop my opponent. Anyways, I didn't call his 7th street bet. Scoop #1 against me.
2. Me: 8cAh-6s-7c-8c-Js-3c
Him: x x 6c-3h-As-2c-x
This hand started 4 handed (the two other players were going high). On fifth street the Ace bet out into me and I raised with my 678 board. This is a very complex stud8 play as it only works in this betting situation. Now the obv. high only hands are forced to call a double bet behind me and they may be drawing dead to my board as I'm representing a made straight. They both folded, the lead three bet me and I called now it was heads up. I raised because although I know that my low draw is no good vs. his board but my 88 is likely the best hand vs. his OR if he has aces up, my low draw may be live and good if it comes in. Either way, this is a great spot for me because I force out the two other high only hands and create a huge overlay with their bets now in the pot without their hands to compete for high. Anyways, I can't improve my 88 and make a worse low. My opponent ends up making a 7 low and TWO PAIR on 7th street!!!! so I get scooped. I was unlucky to have my 88 drawn out on the river but I believe this play is very +ev. Scoop #2 against!
3. Me: JsJc Jh
Him: xx8
Villan2: xxT
Long story short, I put in 4 bets on 5th st. and 3 bets on 6th with rolled up jacks vs. 2 players and 'him' makes a wheel on 7th street (A2345) and scoops us both. Wow, three straight scoops and I'm out in time to make dinner with Derek and Tony O. Pretty sour. As fortunate as my final table run was I've been running way below expectation in the mixed events, I've left a lot in equity on the table.
Not too sure what's next on the list. I may play the $1500 HORSE event on Sunday and I might just wait and play the main event. It's getting pretty tiring all these live tournaments. Time to rally :).
I was very overwhelmed with the support I received from my friends back home in Hamilton. I'm not sure who's doing it was but somehow it made the local paper, "The Spectator". Here's the link.
http://www.thespec.com/Sports/Local%20Sports/article/392339
1. Me: Ks8s 2s -9s-Tc-7c-3h
Him: xxAh-Kd-Ac-8h-x
This hand started 3 handed but the other player crapped out on his high hand after the other player hit open aces. I decided that it was 50-50 whether this opponent was going low and made open aces and continued or made trips on 5th. Either way I had 3 shots to hit my flush and then going into 7th, any J or 6 also makes a straight which I felt would be good enough to scoop my opponent. Anyways, I didn't call his 7th street bet. Scoop #1 against me.
2. Me: 8cAh-6s-7c-8c-Js-3c
Him: x x 6c-3h-As-2c-x
This hand started 4 handed (the two other players were going high). On fifth street the Ace bet out into me and I raised with my 678 board. This is a very complex stud8 play as it only works in this betting situation. Now the obv. high only hands are forced to call a double bet behind me and they may be drawing dead to my board as I'm representing a made straight. They both folded, the lead three bet me and I called now it was heads up. I raised because although I know that my low draw is no good vs. his board but my 88 is likely the best hand vs. his OR if he has aces up, my low draw may be live and good if it comes in. Either way, this is a great spot for me because I force out the two other high only hands and create a huge overlay with their bets now in the pot without their hands to compete for high. Anyways, I can't improve my 88 and make a worse low. My opponent ends up making a 7 low and TWO PAIR on 7th street!!!! so I get scooped. I was unlucky to have my 88 drawn out on the river but I believe this play is very +ev. Scoop #2 against!
3. Me: JsJc Jh
Him: xx8
Villan2: xxT
Long story short, I put in 4 bets on 5th st. and 3 bets on 6th with rolled up jacks vs. 2 players and 'him' makes a wheel on 7th street (A2345) and scoops us both. Wow, three straight scoops and I'm out in time to make dinner with Derek and Tony O. Pretty sour. As fortunate as my final table run was I've been running way below expectation in the mixed events, I've left a lot in equity on the table.
Not too sure what's next on the list. I may play the $1500 HORSE event on Sunday and I might just wait and play the main event. It's getting pretty tiring all these live tournaments. Time to rally :).
I was very overwhelmed with the support I received from my friends back home in Hamilton. I'm not sure who's doing it was but somehow it made the local paper, "The Spectator". Here's the link.
http://www.thespec.com/Sports/Local%20Sports/article/392339
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
An arms length away.....
I fell one person short today of grabbing that illusive first gold bracelet. I was fortunate enough to come 2nd in event 39, the $1500 No Limit Hold'em. First place went to David 'the magician' Woo. Only in poker can you somehow win in one day what it'd take years to make and still be unhappy, lol. I'm very competitive and I made a few mistakes today. I hope I can learn from them and hopefully someday I'll have another shot at winning one. I am having trouble finding the link for the live video broadcast so if anyone has it, please post it as a comment. Here is a link to the post-knock-out interview I had with Bill Edler. If you do take a second to watch the interview, notice that 'my expertise, better play, superior reads', or any other typical comments you here from tournament winners aren't uttered. I was very fortunate to be able to have come 2nd today. I did my best to minimize luck throughout the event but I know it worked in my favour on more than one instance. You simply cannot win or come deep in the money in a 3000 person field without a few breaks going your way.
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/wsoptv/index.asp?curPage=1&videocatid=0&videoid=283
Here's the highlight package of all the knockouts:
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/wsoptv/index.asp?curPage=1&videocatid=0&videoid=285
I am a little worn out and tired, it was 30 something hours all tolled in the last few days but I'll be back on the grind tomorrow with the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha 8/better Hi Low Split at noon. I feel like this is my best game and I hope to have a strong showing. Breaks can wait a few days.
I also want to thank everyone for the constant phone and text support throughout the day. I'm unhappy that I couldn't scoop 1st but your support and confidence really made me feel at ease during the final table. Thanks Caroline, TonyO, MGM, Derek and Wes for railing the event all day. Hopefully this isn't the last time I put a deep run together.
Snap those bracelets are hard to get. How do some of these sickos have 8,10,11? Creepy.
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/wsoptv/index.asp?curPage=1&videocatid=0&videoid=283
Here's the highlight package of all the knockouts:
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/wsoptv/index.asp?curPage=1&videocatid=0&videoid=285
I am a little worn out and tired, it was 30 something hours all tolled in the last few days but I'll be back on the grind tomorrow with the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha 8/better Hi Low Split at noon. I feel like this is my best game and I hope to have a strong showing. Breaks can wait a few days.
I also want to thank everyone for the constant phone and text support throughout the day. I'm unhappy that I couldn't scoop 1st but your support and confidence really made me feel at ease during the final table. Thanks Caroline, TonyO, MGM, Derek and Wes for railing the event all day. Hopefully this isn't the last time I put a deep run together.
Snap those bracelets are hard to get. How do some of these sickos have 8,10,11? Creepy.
Monday, June 23, 2008
My first World Series of Poker final table.....
Okay, now the goal is first place.
It took from 2pm to 5am to wind down from the 215 players who started day 2, to the 9 of us who will play the ESPN360 final table tomorrow at 2pm. It was a crazy day and I'm not even sure where to begin. I was chip leader (or very close to it) for a little while (300k) but somehow got short stacked late in the day and was stuck dead last on the chip count from about 25 people on down to the final 9. I am very familiar with the short stack from online tournament experience so there were a few spots I was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of. A ton of all-in res-steals and open-jams just to pick up the blinds and antes. Long story short, I made it, final table, 675,000 chips which is currently 5th/9. Short stack has around 475k and chip leader has around 1.6million. 9th place is guaranteed 58k and first is over 630k.
I am really fortunate because the lowest stack when we got down to 10 handed doubled up and I became the hunted stack at the table. I picked up AdKd and went all in for 200+k, got called in two spots, QQ and AT. Flop was 22J,turn K and river T so I more than doubled up to my present stack. The final bust out happened a few hands later.
Anyways, I'm going to try to get some sleep, it's 6am here and we play the final table at 2pm. The blinds start back at 20k-40k with a 5k ante. That means every 9 hands it costs 105k to play so I only have 6.5 laps (or roughly 50 hands) before my stack evaporates. The good news is that I'm not the only one feeling the huge structures and I've got a decent handle on what everyone's ranges will be when the pressure mounts. I saw a lot of people lose their minds today when the blinds got high, hopefully the same happens tomorrow. Shallow push-pot tournaments are not what I would ideally like to play but it's out of my hands now. The big jumps in pay (nearly 30k from 9-8-7) makes out-lasting others a worthwhile thought. Sure the bracelet would be great but if you're not playing poker to win money than you're playing to lose it. Hopefully I can find both the coins and the hardware tomorrow. :)
It took from 2pm to 5am to wind down from the 215 players who started day 2, to the 9 of us who will play the ESPN360 final table tomorrow at 2pm. It was a crazy day and I'm not even sure where to begin. I was chip leader (or very close to it) for a little while (300k) but somehow got short stacked late in the day and was stuck dead last on the chip count from about 25 people on down to the final 9. I am very familiar with the short stack from online tournament experience so there were a few spots I was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of. A ton of all-in res-steals and open-jams just to pick up the blinds and antes. Long story short, I made it, final table, 675,000 chips which is currently 5th/9. Short stack has around 475k and chip leader has around 1.6million. 9th place is guaranteed 58k and first is over 630k.
I am really fortunate because the lowest stack when we got down to 10 handed doubled up and I became the hunted stack at the table. I picked up AdKd and went all in for 200+k, got called in two spots, QQ and AT. Flop was 22J,turn K and river T so I more than doubled up to my present stack. The final bust out happened a few hands later.
Anyways, I'm going to try to get some sleep, it's 6am here and we play the final table at 2pm. The blinds start back at 20k-40k with a 5k ante. That means every 9 hands it costs 105k to play so I only have 6.5 laps (or roughly 50 hands) before my stack evaporates. The good news is that I'm not the only one feeling the huge structures and I've got a decent handle on what everyone's ranges will be when the pressure mounts. I saw a lot of people lose their minds today when the blinds got high, hopefully the same happens tomorrow. Shallow push-pot tournaments are not what I would ideally like to play but it's out of my hands now. The big jumps in pay (nearly 30k from 9-8-7) makes out-lasting others a worthwhile thought. Sure the bracelet would be great but if you're not playing poker to win money than you're playing to lose it. Hopefully I can find both the coins and the hardware tomorrow. :)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Event 39: $1500 No Limit Hold'em
2720 players started today with 3000 tournament chips. We played 10 hours today and play ended with 218 of us making the money and making it to day 2. I ended the day with 93,000 chips (average is just above 40k I believe). It's great that I finally broke the no-cash streak this trip but anything short of a final table would be a disappointment. The money is very shallow until the final 9 so there is plenty more work to do tomorrow. New tables have been assigned so I have know clue who I am playing with tomorrow. Here are the key hands from today, some very interesting ones, perhaps even the best call I've ever made in a tournament.
My first table I chipped up from 3k to around 9k without having any real showdowns. I had Theo Tran on my left, who in my opinion plays about as good tournament No Limit as I've seen. That table broke and my first key hand came on my new one. I had 3-bet re-stealed twice already, once with JJ, once with A2 so my image was very good. There was one limper, I had AA and made it 900 (blinds: 100-200 w 25 ante), one key called behind, then the small blind (see thugish young kid) makes it 2500 to go in the small blind. The limper folds, I jam, the caller behind me calls all in, the SB folds after the attempted squeeze. My AA holds against KJs and I'm up to around 18,000 in the 4th level.
Timing is everything. I proceed to lose 6k in the next hour, once on a raise and continuation bet with K9 (up against KK) and once with AQ (same raise + Cbet) vs. bottom set. I released after my Cbet's failed so I lose the minimum instead of losing my mind and doing something silly by trying to push them through. Anyways.... the scene is set for the coolest hand yet.
First hand after the break, we're playing 150-300, the Big Blind is not at his chair yet so I decide it's my time to thieve, I raise Kc9h from UTG+1, the button calls. The button is a tight young kid, only shown down winners and played them cautiously. I didn't like the looks of it so far. Flop was Qc 9c 6d. I bet around 1500 into the say 2600 or so pot. He calls. Turn is a 5h. I bet 2200, he calls. Now I really wanted the hand to end on the turn, I know I priced in any draw he may have but since he only had 5k remaining for the river, I thought that 2200 would be enough to shake any flush draw/straight draw or raggedy suited Q (QJ,QT,KQ) out, especially if he's playing his first wsop event (I thought it might be the case as he'd left to speak to an older man, presumably his father, a few times). Anyways, the river was the 7h. Now any 8 makes a straight. I felt like my 9 may have showdown value and plus, if I was ahead, he may give up on the river and check it down, not wanting to risk his last few thousand. I check and he almost instantly moves in for 6k. Hmmm. lets take a lot at this. My thinking went like this.
- He can't be a good enough player to value bet any Queen, tough to do so with 2 pair. Even then, he's only getting called by worse so better go for value than go for his whole stack.
- He may lose his mind and bluff a missed flush draw/straight draw
- He may be value betting a set or a club draw with a random 8 (Jc8c, Ac8c, Tc8c).
- If he had a combo draw, he would have jammed earlier instead of trying to hit for 1/2 his chips.
- He didn't even think before he bet, usually if you had the nuts, he'd think about value, perhaps put on the I'm weak show.
- What did he put me on? 4 to a straight obviously worried me if I checked, if he did have a real hand, are KK or AA or AQ really going to call a value shove: no.
- His range is either air or a straight for the above reasons.
Anyways, I felt that there were more combinations of bluffs in his polarized range than hands that call 3 streets and not jam a draw. So after a few minutes I called, he showed JT and I won a huge 14k pot with 2nd pair. Joe Hachem, who had moved to my table a few hands before gave me this wry Australian smile as I was chipping up. Sort of a cool hand. It was for literally for all but 2k of my chips so this was the turning point in my day.
That table broke after I jammed on AJ with AK and won that showdown.
We then moved into the main room in level 6 or so. The guy who busted Hachem had about 9k in chips and 3.5x opened from UTG+2. I look down at QQ, reraise, he gets it in and shows AA. I flopped quads and get from 38k to around 50k. Ugly but the hand plays itself.....I get super crazy lucky. Thankfully I had the chips to spare even if I lost that 4.5-1 dog showdown. Uh oh, someone's running good. :)
Eventually that table breaks as well and I get moved to the final table of the day. 3 nits, 1 wild card, 3 very good European online players. The good players are on my left (read bad), the wild card is on my right (read bad) and I'm surrounded by the nits. For the next three levels I steal and re-steal to survive the blinds and antes and hover around 45k until the bubble burst and we made the money at 270 people.
Two hands happened in that time that are of note. I made sure I played pots with the nits because I knew what cards and ranges that hit them. I stole two big pots on double barrel bluffs that didn't go to showdown, both times they showed me top pair and folded. After all, I had a good image, I showed aces after a 3-bet re-steal and generally layed low. I had no choice, I had a horrendous table draw and a bad seating arrangement.
Anyways, the one European online genius (and he really played well, very aggressive, very good at accumulating, I'd swear he was a Pantling) accumulated around 90k in chips. The biggest pot of the day for me came with 30 minutes left in level ten. He opened to 3500 mid table (playing 500-1000 with a 100ante) and everyone folded to me in the Big Blind with 44. I called, flop came 3d4dQh. I checked, he bet 5200, I check raised to 12,500. I left myself with around 36,000, enough room I thought for him to read my check raise as a re-steal and jam over top. He did, I called, he tabled 56offsuit, turn blanked and river paired the 3. That ended my day doubling through and up to 93,700.
I hope some of these explanations make sense as I'm sure I'm rushing through the hand replays. They're really clear in my head as I tried my best to pay very close attention today. Knowing stack sizes, calling+opening+3-betting ranges for my opponents, who will fail to C-Bet, who will bet light in position when in the lead, who will defend their blinds and who is paying attention. Overall I think I made 3-4 big mistakes that could have had me up past 120,000 but there's no point dwelling on them. I don't mind recognizing how lucky I was to outrun AA with QQ or how lucky I was that I flopped a set when a dude decided to lose his mind. But there is another part of tournament poker luck that I want to make clear.
Twice today I raised and C-Bet with air vs. 1. an overpair and 2. a set. I am LUCKY that I decided to shut down and give up my bluff early, minimizing chip spews (the line between genius and idiot are close in poker). I am LUCKY that I found a few hands in good spots to 3-bet re-steal against nitty opponents who need a big hand to play back at me. I am LUCKY that I got a few walks in the big blind to stay alive between lulls. I am LUCKY that my timing on 3 barrel bluffs was good. So basically, luck comes in many forms in my opinion. I just hope it keeps on my side tomorrow as I try to make it deeper into this event. I don't want to miss the 12pm 2-7 triple draw for nothing now do I.
My first table I chipped up from 3k to around 9k without having any real showdowns. I had Theo Tran on my left, who in my opinion plays about as good tournament No Limit as I've seen. That table broke and my first key hand came on my new one. I had 3-bet re-stealed twice already, once with JJ, once with A2 so my image was very good. There was one limper, I had AA and made it 900 (blinds: 100-200 w 25 ante), one key called behind, then the small blind (see thugish young kid) makes it 2500 to go in the small blind. The limper folds, I jam, the caller behind me calls all in, the SB folds after the attempted squeeze. My AA holds against KJs and I'm up to around 18,000 in the 4th level.
Timing is everything. I proceed to lose 6k in the next hour, once on a raise and continuation bet with K9 (up against KK) and once with AQ (same raise + Cbet) vs. bottom set. I released after my Cbet's failed so I lose the minimum instead of losing my mind and doing something silly by trying to push them through. Anyways.... the scene is set for the coolest hand yet.
First hand after the break, we're playing 150-300, the Big Blind is not at his chair yet so I decide it's my time to thieve, I raise Kc9h from UTG+1, the button calls. The button is a tight young kid, only shown down winners and played them cautiously. I didn't like the looks of it so far. Flop was Qc 9c 6d. I bet around 1500 into the say 2600 or so pot. He calls. Turn is a 5h. I bet 2200, he calls. Now I really wanted the hand to end on the turn, I know I priced in any draw he may have but since he only had 5k remaining for the river, I thought that 2200 would be enough to shake any flush draw/straight draw or raggedy suited Q (QJ,QT,KQ) out, especially if he's playing his first wsop event (I thought it might be the case as he'd left to speak to an older man, presumably his father, a few times). Anyways, the river was the 7h. Now any 8 makes a straight. I felt like my 9 may have showdown value and plus, if I was ahead, he may give up on the river and check it down, not wanting to risk his last few thousand. I check and he almost instantly moves in for 6k. Hmmm. lets take a lot at this. My thinking went like this.
- He can't be a good enough player to value bet any Queen, tough to do so with 2 pair. Even then, he's only getting called by worse so better go for value than go for his whole stack.
- He may lose his mind and bluff a missed flush draw/straight draw
- He may be value betting a set or a club draw with a random 8 (Jc8c, Ac8c, Tc8c).
- If he had a combo draw, he would have jammed earlier instead of trying to hit for 1/2 his chips.
- He didn't even think before he bet, usually if you had the nuts, he'd think about value, perhaps put on the I'm weak show.
- What did he put me on? 4 to a straight obviously worried me if I checked, if he did have a real hand, are KK or AA or AQ really going to call a value shove: no.
- His range is either air or a straight for the above reasons.
Anyways, I felt that there were more combinations of bluffs in his polarized range than hands that call 3 streets and not jam a draw. So after a few minutes I called, he showed JT and I won a huge 14k pot with 2nd pair. Joe Hachem, who had moved to my table a few hands before gave me this wry Australian smile as I was chipping up. Sort of a cool hand. It was for literally for all but 2k of my chips so this was the turning point in my day.
That table broke after I jammed on AJ with AK and won that showdown.
We then moved into the main room in level 6 or so. The guy who busted Hachem had about 9k in chips and 3.5x opened from UTG+2. I look down at QQ, reraise, he gets it in and shows AA. I flopped quads and get from 38k to around 50k. Ugly but the hand plays itself.....I get super crazy lucky. Thankfully I had the chips to spare even if I lost that 4.5-1 dog showdown. Uh oh, someone's running good. :)
Eventually that table breaks as well and I get moved to the final table of the day. 3 nits, 1 wild card, 3 very good European online players. The good players are on my left (read bad), the wild card is on my right (read bad) and I'm surrounded by the nits. For the next three levels I steal and re-steal to survive the blinds and antes and hover around 45k until the bubble burst and we made the money at 270 people.
Two hands happened in that time that are of note. I made sure I played pots with the nits because I knew what cards and ranges that hit them. I stole two big pots on double barrel bluffs that didn't go to showdown, both times they showed me top pair and folded. After all, I had a good image, I showed aces after a 3-bet re-steal and generally layed low. I had no choice, I had a horrendous table draw and a bad seating arrangement.
Anyways, the one European online genius (and he really played well, very aggressive, very good at accumulating, I'd swear he was a Pantling) accumulated around 90k in chips. The biggest pot of the day for me came with 30 minutes left in level ten. He opened to 3500 mid table (playing 500-1000 with a 100ante) and everyone folded to me in the Big Blind with 44. I called, flop came 3d4dQh. I checked, he bet 5200, I check raised to 12,500. I left myself with around 36,000, enough room I thought for him to read my check raise as a re-steal and jam over top. He did, I called, he tabled 56offsuit, turn blanked and river paired the 3. That ended my day doubling through and up to 93,700.
I hope some of these explanations make sense as I'm sure I'm rushing through the hand replays. They're really clear in my head as I tried my best to pay very close attention today. Knowing stack sizes, calling+opening+3-betting ranges for my opponents, who will fail to C-Bet, who will bet light in position when in the lead, who will defend their blinds and who is paying attention. Overall I think I made 3-4 big mistakes that could have had me up past 120,000 but there's no point dwelling on them. I don't mind recognizing how lucky I was to outrun AA with QQ or how lucky I was that I flopped a set when a dude decided to lose his mind. But there is another part of tournament poker luck that I want to make clear.
Twice today I raised and C-Bet with air vs. 1. an overpair and 2. a set. I am LUCKY that I decided to shut down and give up my bluff early, minimizing chip spews (the line between genius and idiot are close in poker). I am LUCKY that I found a few hands in good spots to 3-bet re-steal against nitty opponents who need a big hand to play back at me. I am LUCKY that I got a few walks in the big blind to stay alive between lulls. I am LUCKY that my timing on 3 barrel bluffs was good. So basically, luck comes in many forms in my opinion. I just hope it keeps on my side tomorrow as I try to make it deeper into this event. I don't want to miss the 12pm 2-7 triple draw for nothing now do I.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
$1500 Seven Card Stud
Another day, another quick exit. This tournament started with 3000 in chips and a 10 ante, playing 50-100 levels. I was eliminated in just the third level (playing 25 ante and 100-200 levels). I entered today playing on picking on the antes whenever I had the high card bring in and firing until 5th street unless I haven't improved and they start firing back. My strategy worked very poorly as at least 3 times the low card bring in defended and started firing back. I held no pair until the third level, which sounds like a line but really and truly, a bunch of A highs and K high boards that no one would relent to. I ended up losing half my stack by the 20 minute break after level two and then my all in hand came against a women's bracelet winner. I held my first pair. Split 9's (939) vs. her T89. Hands run a little closer together in Stud than they do in hold'em (I started as a 60% favourite). On fifth street she raised my bet of 200 to put me all in. My board was 9JA (93down) and hers read TQ4(98 down). She pulled a 4 on 6th street and an 8 on 7th to make two pair, I ran un-improved (2Q) and was eliminated. When the money went in on 5th she was a 70-30 dog but you need chips early in these to play 'normal stud' so her play, though full of gamble, was I guess strategically break even. If I did hold an overpair to her Q, say buried kings or aces up, she has only 20% or (if aces up), she's nearly dead with only 13%. Anyways, it continues to be a tough go of it as far as tournaments go. I'm not sure what, if any tournaments, are left on my list. I may cut it all short and take the small loss instead of risking more in entries when having poor results and being frustrated.
On the cash game sides, I popped my cherry here and had my first bad loss of the trip playing $40-80 mixed, $40-80 stud and $20-40 stud yesterday at the Bellagio. The games were good but I couldn't do much about it. Most of the loss came in being outdrawn in 2-7 triple draw and card dead in the straight 7stud game. I'm optimistic in the positivity of my expectation in that game but I also know not to push the issue when things aren't breaking right.
I'm going to stay home and play online for a few days, grind a few thousand hands. Hopefully things will turn around. I'm starting to become very envious of David Singer. FYI, you want to see the combination of playing good/running good, please look at what he's done this year. Simply amazing. Hope everyone's well.
On the cash game sides, I popped my cherry here and had my first bad loss of the trip playing $40-80 mixed, $40-80 stud and $20-40 stud yesterday at the Bellagio. The games were good but I couldn't do much about it. Most of the loss came in being outdrawn in 2-7 triple draw and card dead in the straight 7stud game. I'm optimistic in the positivity of my expectation in that game but I also know not to push the issue when things aren't breaking right.
I'm going to stay home and play online for a few days, grind a few thousand hands. Hopefully things will turn around. I'm starting to become very envious of David Singer. FYI, you want to see the combination of playing good/running good, please look at what he's done this year. Simply amazing. Hope everyone's well.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
the last few....
I will keep some of the updates short as there are 3 tournaments I've played since I last reported back.
1. $3000 H.O.R.S.E.
I had a great table draw and I felt really good about the event (until it started). I managed to lose every hand I put a chip in for and was knocked out on the last hand before dinner (4 hours in). I wasn't terribly upset about the event as I don't think I mis-played many hands. I did pay off on the last bet a few times in Omaha8 and Limit Hold'em when the river caught me but with a lot of bets in, these pots need to be sure misses to muck over 1 bet. The last hand was a bit tough to take, I start A4A, 86KQ... and get scooped by J4K, 6TJ4 for two pair. I was all in on 6th when he hit his first pair. I crap out and can't make aces up or a low. Tough to stomach when it's the hand that knocked me out.
2. $2500 1/2 PLO, 1/2 PLH (pot-limit omaha and hold'em).
I was really looking forward to this one. Although I don't play PLH hardly ever, it's very similar to NLHE except you can take a few more speculative hands in pre-flop as you can't be pushed out by late raises, they can only jam the size of the pot. Anyways, pot control is king in this game and I feel very comfortable in all PLO games. Vanessa Rousso (poker stars pro) was sitting to my immediate right. I doubled up in the first level of PLH as my 7d6d outdrew the 2h3h on a 4c5d6c Jd 3s board. I flopped an up and down straight draw with top pair, backdoor a diamond draw and spike a 3 on the end. I check-raised the turn and played the hand poorly but I did have 15 outs heading into the river. Thankfully I hit. So I had a double stack of 9k when this hand came up with Vanessa. I have AQo in my bb and she and 4 others limp into a pot. Qs 8s 5h was the flop, I lead for pot, she goes all in, I tank forever and decided she wouldn't play a set as fast as she moved in, decided she was on a spade draw and called. She showed the KsJs. For the 9k pot she spiked the 2s on the river and doubled up. Then a hand came vs. this loose-aggressive clueless kid in the middle of the table. He raised preflop I called in my bb with AcTc. Flop was QJ7. I checked, he did the chip dance and then after a minute, checked. The turn was a 8s (backdoor spade draw on the way). I led for 600, he makes it 1600. I thought for a while and eventually came up with his range being QQ, 88, backdoor Ahigh spades, QJ suited or an air ball (which in these wsop events is very likely). I thought if I called the 1000 more (with about 4.5k behind, and I hit my K or 9 for a straight I would scoop his whole stack as fold wasn't in his arsenal with a big hand. Anyways, I called and the river was 4 and he showed me the 64offsuit. He rivered a pair of fours. He had raised me on the turn with a gut shot to a small straight. I was shocked that he checked the hand down, thinking that his fours were good or perhaps he was just done with his bluff. Kind of sick and on the outset it looks like I misplayed the hand (which knowing his hand, I did) but I only led and called his raise on the turn because I figured that I could either take him off TT, 99 or AK or stack him off his big hand if I hit my 8 wins. I lost two PLO pots, one of them andy bloch rivered me, the second I mis-judged the strength of my set and called and got shown a straight than my opponent checked twice in last position and totally confused me. I ended up getting short and lost to andy bloch with my all in hand. I had an up and down straight flush draw and he had one pair, I missed, he wins, I'm out.
3. $2500 Deep Stack Venetian No Limit Hold'em Tournament (non wsop event).
So lets re-cap. I've played what, 6 wsop events and made only 1 day 2 and have had no cashes. Sound a little like last year? Things haven't gone well and I've been pretty frustrated but what should be mentioned is that the wsop provides the worlds worst tournament structures. I decided that I was going to play a no limit hold em tournament for the first time this trip and I was going to play in a tournament with a GOOD structure, one that doesn't shoe you out the door or make luck the largest element in the early rounds. So, 257 or so people bought in for this, 20k in starting chips, blinds start 25-50, 1 hour levels. I have a few key hands to talk about but first, I played 14 hours on day 1 and didn't have a pair above 99 all day and only saw AQ and AK once each. I ended up finishing 18th in this event for my first extremely shitty and shallow cash of around $5000 (net $2500). I have a few hands to re-tell and I'll let you decide how I should perceive my luck thus far.
a. First round, blinds 25-50. I raise to 150 utg+1 with 68 of spades. Flop 4c5d7c. Two callers. I led the flop for 400, both called. Turn Jd. I led the turn for 2000 (overbets with the nuts), they both called. River was the 5d (worst card in the deck). The river gets checked around, the last player goes 'I'm the best fucking player in here, ship that!' and shows the Qd3d for a winning flush. Large 8k pot for the first level of play.
b. It's late in day 1, I've been stealing and 3bet re-stealing to steal chips and stay alive without having any hands. I raise the 6c7c from mid-table position and the Big Blind calls. AT4rainbow flop, he checks, I bet 2/3rd's the pot, he check raises all in, I fold. He tells me later he had the Ks2s, no pair no draw and that he was on tilt and just needed the chips. It's funny how the bluffer always thinks he's stealing the pot but I had the 7 high so... lol, I guess it's fitting he won. It was my fault thought. I misplayed the hand. I should have just shoved all in and he would have folded. He really needs AK, AQ or AJ to call me there and he would have re-raised me preflop with those holdings (after having played with him for a few hours). I lost valuable chips by only thinking on the 2nd level whereas I knew that he was capable of making a play at my short stack, knowing I couldn't call without and ace. So anyways, average stack at this point is around 78k and I have 45k. I chip it all the way up to around 95k by stealing and re-stealing with no hands and then with 5 minutes left in day 1 I open-raised from the cut-off with 99. The big blind (a very solid player) re-raised all-in for another 35k. There was like 28k in the pot and against his range, 99 is often the best hand and I need the chips! after all, this is the first hand I've seen all day. He showed KK and I lost. So, I end day 1 with 48k and the average 105,000k. Day 2 began with 38 players trying to get to the money (27) and I had the fewest chips. Again, no hands the first 2 levels, I stole and re-stole in position and got all the way up to around 175k at my high point.
It's important to be clear, I don't fancy my no limit game to be world class by any means. Hell, there are 3 people in my house right now who probably play better no limit hold em than I do but I'm not exaggerating by saying that I didn't have one pocket pair over 99's or AK more than once all the way up to the money bubble, 16 hours of play!!!!. This is the advantage of long slow no limit hold em structures, it allows for artistic play where your cards really do play a secondary role in chip accumulation. Anyways, the bubble broke, tables got re-shuffled and I had chips because of a flip I took vs. the chip leader. I had AK, he had 88, I won the flip and thus doubled up to 170+k. We got down to around 19 people and we were going to move tables to two of 9 people when everyone folded to me in the small blind. I had 125k in chips and the Big Blind had me covered.
I had folded the small blind to him once, raised him out once and this time I looked down at 8T offsuit and decided that this one was going to be won without a shown down. I made it 24k to go at the 4k-8k limits with 1k ante (21k out there). He defended by just calling. Head's up to the flop.
c. Before I spoil this story. I watched this guy play yesterday. He played a hand about as poorly as possible with a huge stack. He raised UTG with 56of hearts. the Big Blind called. Flop was 578 all diamonds. BB checked, he bet, BB check raised 3x more, he called. The turn was a 6s (giving our villan two pair), the BB bet half of his 3/4 of his remaining stack, the villain goes all in, the BB calls. The BB shows AA with the ace of diamonds, river was a Kd and the villain was decimated. The villain was more than a 70-30 dog on the flop, a 60-40 favourite on the turn. He must have told this 'bad beat story' 5 times when I was in ear shot of him. He is totally clueless to stack sizes, equity, stack-blind dynamics, player ranges... he just doesn't have a clue. Anyways. so back to the hand in question. The pot now contains around 65k and the flop was Td 8d 2c. I flopped top two in a blind war. I lead out for 42k with exactly 50k left. Lets be clear about one thing. I was committed to the pot no matter what he did, I had 2/3rds of my chips in there. He takes all of 2 seconds to announce all in, I call he shows me QJoffsuit and he's dead to a gut shot. Turn was an Ace, (giving him a double belly buster) and the river was 9 knocking me out in 18th place, leaving this world class player with a lot of chips and a good shot at a large pay day. As I said, first place was almost $300,000.
I was really rocked after that hand. I usually do pretty well at containing myself when the beats start happening but that hand, combined with trying so hard to overcome being card dead, the sick beat when I flopped the straight, and all the tournament bad luck/beats so far in the wsop, I couldn't take it, I hurled a few disparaging remarks his way and left. I'm supremely frustrated, I'm running pretty poorly and I watch guy after guy get so lucky for big pay days that don't have a clue. Anyways, I left the tournament with Wes, watched 'the happening' and resolved to suck up the bad luck as I really can't do anything to thwart it unless I stop playing.
I really deserved better today but karma doesn't play a part in poker and I can't change how the cards fall. This player got his money in with 20% equity for near 300k pot with 18 left, deep in the money for $300,000. He won, I lost. If I let my emotions get the best of me I will never be in that position again. Suffice it to say, I'll never have it in there with zero fold equity or 20% hand equity deep in the money. That variance won't even out because I won't be in that position.
Not sure what's next on the list for me, I'm going to take a few days off. Andrew went home for a few days, Derek is out of the house for a while. Isn't this fun!!!
1. $3000 H.O.R.S.E.
I had a great table draw and I felt really good about the event (until it started). I managed to lose every hand I put a chip in for and was knocked out on the last hand before dinner (4 hours in). I wasn't terribly upset about the event as I don't think I mis-played many hands. I did pay off on the last bet a few times in Omaha8 and Limit Hold'em when the river caught me but with a lot of bets in, these pots need to be sure misses to muck over 1 bet. The last hand was a bit tough to take, I start A4A, 86KQ... and get scooped by J4K, 6TJ4 for two pair. I was all in on 6th when he hit his first pair. I crap out and can't make aces up or a low. Tough to stomach when it's the hand that knocked me out.
2. $2500 1/2 PLO, 1/2 PLH (pot-limit omaha and hold'em).
I was really looking forward to this one. Although I don't play PLH hardly ever, it's very similar to NLHE except you can take a few more speculative hands in pre-flop as you can't be pushed out by late raises, they can only jam the size of the pot. Anyways, pot control is king in this game and I feel very comfortable in all PLO games. Vanessa Rousso (poker stars pro) was sitting to my immediate right. I doubled up in the first level of PLH as my 7d6d outdrew the 2h3h on a 4c5d6c Jd 3s board. I flopped an up and down straight draw with top pair, backdoor a diamond draw and spike a 3 on the end. I check-raised the turn and played the hand poorly but I did have 15 outs heading into the river. Thankfully I hit. So I had a double stack of 9k when this hand came up with Vanessa. I have AQo in my bb and she and 4 others limp into a pot. Qs 8s 5h was the flop, I lead for pot, she goes all in, I tank forever and decided she wouldn't play a set as fast as she moved in, decided she was on a spade draw and called. She showed the KsJs. For the 9k pot she spiked the 2s on the river and doubled up. Then a hand came vs. this loose-aggressive clueless kid in the middle of the table. He raised preflop I called in my bb with AcTc. Flop was QJ7. I checked, he did the chip dance and then after a minute, checked. The turn was a 8s (backdoor spade draw on the way). I led for 600, he makes it 1600. I thought for a while and eventually came up with his range being QQ, 88, backdoor Ahigh spades, QJ suited or an air ball (which in these wsop events is very likely). I thought if I called the 1000 more (with about 4.5k behind, and I hit my K or 9 for a straight I would scoop his whole stack as fold wasn't in his arsenal with a big hand. Anyways, I called and the river was 4 and he showed me the 64offsuit. He rivered a pair of fours. He had raised me on the turn with a gut shot to a small straight. I was shocked that he checked the hand down, thinking that his fours were good or perhaps he was just done with his bluff. Kind of sick and on the outset it looks like I misplayed the hand (which knowing his hand, I did) but I only led and called his raise on the turn because I figured that I could either take him off TT, 99 or AK or stack him off his big hand if I hit my 8 wins. I lost two PLO pots, one of them andy bloch rivered me, the second I mis-judged the strength of my set and called and got shown a straight than my opponent checked twice in last position and totally confused me. I ended up getting short and lost to andy bloch with my all in hand. I had an up and down straight flush draw and he had one pair, I missed, he wins, I'm out.
3. $2500 Deep Stack Venetian No Limit Hold'em Tournament (non wsop event).
So lets re-cap. I've played what, 6 wsop events and made only 1 day 2 and have had no cashes. Sound a little like last year? Things haven't gone well and I've been pretty frustrated but what should be mentioned is that the wsop provides the worlds worst tournament structures. I decided that I was going to play a no limit hold em tournament for the first time this trip and I was going to play in a tournament with a GOOD structure, one that doesn't shoe you out the door or make luck the largest element in the early rounds. So, 257 or so people bought in for this, 20k in starting chips, blinds start 25-50, 1 hour levels. I have a few key hands to talk about but first, I played 14 hours on day 1 and didn't have a pair above 99 all day and only saw AQ and AK once each. I ended up finishing 18th in this event for my first extremely shitty and shallow cash of around $5000 (net $2500). I have a few hands to re-tell and I'll let you decide how I should perceive my luck thus far.
a. First round, blinds 25-50. I raise to 150 utg+1 with 68 of spades. Flop 4c5d7c. Two callers. I led the flop for 400, both called. Turn Jd. I led the turn for 2000 (overbets with the nuts), they both called. River was the 5d (worst card in the deck). The river gets checked around, the last player goes 'I'm the best fucking player in here, ship that!' and shows the Qd3d for a winning flush. Large 8k pot for the first level of play.
b. It's late in day 1, I've been stealing and 3bet re-stealing to steal chips and stay alive without having any hands. I raise the 6c7c from mid-table position and the Big Blind calls. AT4rainbow flop, he checks, I bet 2/3rd's the pot, he check raises all in, I fold. He tells me later he had the Ks2s, no pair no draw and that he was on tilt and just needed the chips. It's funny how the bluffer always thinks he's stealing the pot but I had the 7 high so... lol, I guess it's fitting he won. It was my fault thought. I misplayed the hand. I should have just shoved all in and he would have folded. He really needs AK, AQ or AJ to call me there and he would have re-raised me preflop with those holdings (after having played with him for a few hours). I lost valuable chips by only thinking on the 2nd level whereas I knew that he was capable of making a play at my short stack, knowing I couldn't call without and ace. So anyways, average stack at this point is around 78k and I have 45k. I chip it all the way up to around 95k by stealing and re-stealing with no hands and then with 5 minutes left in day 1 I open-raised from the cut-off with 99. The big blind (a very solid player) re-raised all-in for another 35k. There was like 28k in the pot and against his range, 99 is often the best hand and I need the chips! after all, this is the first hand I've seen all day. He showed KK and I lost. So, I end day 1 with 48k and the average 105,000k. Day 2 began with 38 players trying to get to the money (27) and I had the fewest chips. Again, no hands the first 2 levels, I stole and re-stole in position and got all the way up to around 175k at my high point.
It's important to be clear, I don't fancy my no limit game to be world class by any means. Hell, there are 3 people in my house right now who probably play better no limit hold em than I do but I'm not exaggerating by saying that I didn't have one pocket pair over 99's or AK more than once all the way up to the money bubble, 16 hours of play!!!!. This is the advantage of long slow no limit hold em structures, it allows for artistic play where your cards really do play a secondary role in chip accumulation. Anyways, the bubble broke, tables got re-shuffled and I had chips because of a flip I took vs. the chip leader. I had AK, he had 88, I won the flip and thus doubled up to 170+k. We got down to around 19 people and we were going to move tables to two of 9 people when everyone folded to me in the small blind. I had 125k in chips and the Big Blind had me covered.
I had folded the small blind to him once, raised him out once and this time I looked down at 8T offsuit and decided that this one was going to be won without a shown down. I made it 24k to go at the 4k-8k limits with 1k ante (21k out there). He defended by just calling. Head's up to the flop.
c. Before I spoil this story. I watched this guy play yesterday. He played a hand about as poorly as possible with a huge stack. He raised UTG with 56of hearts. the Big Blind called. Flop was 578 all diamonds. BB checked, he bet, BB check raised 3x more, he called. The turn was a 6s (giving our villan two pair), the BB bet half of his 3/4 of his remaining stack, the villain goes all in, the BB calls. The BB shows AA with the ace of diamonds, river was a Kd and the villain was decimated. The villain was more than a 70-30 dog on the flop, a 60-40 favourite on the turn. He must have told this 'bad beat story' 5 times when I was in ear shot of him. He is totally clueless to stack sizes, equity, stack-blind dynamics, player ranges... he just doesn't have a clue. Anyways. so back to the hand in question. The pot now contains around 65k and the flop was Td 8d 2c. I flopped top two in a blind war. I lead out for 42k with exactly 50k left. Lets be clear about one thing. I was committed to the pot no matter what he did, I had 2/3rds of my chips in there. He takes all of 2 seconds to announce all in, I call he shows me QJoffsuit and he's dead to a gut shot. Turn was an Ace, (giving him a double belly buster) and the river was 9 knocking me out in 18th place, leaving this world class player with a lot of chips and a good shot at a large pay day. As I said, first place was almost $300,000.
I was really rocked after that hand. I usually do pretty well at containing myself when the beats start happening but that hand, combined with trying so hard to overcome being card dead, the sick beat when I flopped the straight, and all the tournament bad luck/beats so far in the wsop, I couldn't take it, I hurled a few disparaging remarks his way and left. I'm supremely frustrated, I'm running pretty poorly and I watch guy after guy get so lucky for big pay days that don't have a clue. Anyways, I left the tournament with Wes, watched 'the happening' and resolved to suck up the bad luck as I really can't do anything to thwart it unless I stop playing.
I really deserved better today but karma doesn't play a part in poker and I can't change how the cards fall. This player got his money in with 20% equity for near 300k pot with 18 left, deep in the money for $300,000. He won, I lost. If I let my emotions get the best of me I will never be in that position again. Suffice it to say, I'll never have it in there with zero fold equity or 20% hand equity deep in the money. That variance won't even out because I won't be in that position.
Not sure what's next on the list for me, I'm going to take a few days off. Andrew went home for a few days, Derek is out of the house for a while. Isn't this fun!!!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
pot limit omaha.
Hello. So today was the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha tournament at the World Series. It was the first event that Andrew, Wes and I played together. I'm happy to say that Andrew did very well and unfortunately just missed the money by a few spots. Wes and I had earlier exits than we both would have liked but it was an extremely fast structure and if you weren't hitting hands early, than you needed to prepare to gamble soon. I eventually got it in bad with double suited JJ vs. KKxx. It was a great field with a punch of dead money but the speed of the tournament forced your hand early. In my opinion, tournament structure is everything. With short term luck being such a big factor in live tournament poker, the structure either exacerbates that fact or minimizes it. Sadly, the world series of poker may have the worst structures of any tournaments I've seen but theres a mystique to these events, the prize pools are large and there is a HUGE overlay caused by the generally weak players. Anyways, so far I am 0-4, I don't think I updated the results for the day 2 of the Omaha Hi Lo split event but I tripled up in the first few orbits and then got it all in with AA27 vs. JJxx, a GREAT spot but he spiked a jack and my hopes of chipping back into contention were over with.
So, the next event on the schedule is the $3000 H.O.R.S.E. event at 5pm tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to this event and I hope I run hot. The way I am has me constantly trying to figure out strategies and improve on old ones so I'm doing my best to figure out what I'm doing either wrong or right in these events. It all comes down to getting all the chips. You some how have to collect all the chips in the tournament to win it. Now, in no limit structures and to a lesser extent, pot limit, you have room to artistically maneuver your chips with or without a hand. In the limit events (the ones I've played mostly), you'll have to show down a lot of hands, especially against weaker players because they just call all day long, hoping they win on showdowns. So unless you're running super hot and making a ton of winners or you're crazy aggressive and spewing and getting to 1. hit hands, 2. force bad players to fold 3. hope your opponents miss. So as good as I've been trying to play, good play needs to be thrown out the window in an attempt to accumulate chips. Who cares if you're looked down upon by the players at your table, get the chips whatever means necessary. It's a sad truth that the players who win these major tournaments, probably aren't the best cash game players and probably don't understand or have the discipline to be winning players under normal circumstances. Anyways, bottom line, have to accumulate somehow, playing winning poker isn't enough so far.
The good news is, I've had a lot of success in the side games. There has been a 20-40 mixed game at the rio the past few days (badugi, 2-7triple draw, omaha8 and stud8) that I've take a whole lot of bets out of, beat the 30-60 omaha8 at the bellagio, the no limit game at the rio and I'm up a few thousand online since I've been here but as I'm writing this blog I've just lost a few flips for stacks in a very aggressive 6max game. I'm looking to play a bit higher but there's a real gap in the limits here, the next largest mix game is the 80-160 game in the bellagio which I'm sure is a might tougher than the 20-40 at the rio and will play huge. It'd be the biggest limit structure game I would have ever played if I decide to sit. If there is a lot of stud and omaha in the mix I'd be more incline. The draw games, badugi and deuce are very swingy in that often times you'll have to see the draws to the end and can't/shouldn't give up like you can in stud8 vs. an opponent's board.
Anyways, I hope cash continues to go well, I hope the tournaments go better for all three of us and mostly I hope to continue to learn. I have made a few higher playing friends here that have offered me a sweat (watching them play and seeing their cards). One of them plays in just about the highest game going so I hope I get that opportunity.
Lastly, the starting table contained Rafi Amit, a two time omaha bracelet winner at the world series of poker and Simpson's co-creator Sam Simon. We all had a pretty good time and Sam drew a picture of bart simpson and signed it (out of his own volition!!). Pretty interesting. Rafi is an avid basketball fan and we argued NBA 'what-if's' for a while before I busted out.
Anyways, cross your fingers! I need the chips!
So, the next event on the schedule is the $3000 H.O.R.S.E. event at 5pm tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to this event and I hope I run hot. The way I am has me constantly trying to figure out strategies and improve on old ones so I'm doing my best to figure out what I'm doing either wrong or right in these events. It all comes down to getting all the chips. You some how have to collect all the chips in the tournament to win it. Now, in no limit structures and to a lesser extent, pot limit, you have room to artistically maneuver your chips with or without a hand. In the limit events (the ones I've played mostly), you'll have to show down a lot of hands, especially against weaker players because they just call all day long, hoping they win on showdowns. So unless you're running super hot and making a ton of winners or you're crazy aggressive and spewing and getting to 1. hit hands, 2. force bad players to fold 3. hope your opponents miss. So as good as I've been trying to play, good play needs to be thrown out the window in an attempt to accumulate chips. Who cares if you're looked down upon by the players at your table, get the chips whatever means necessary. It's a sad truth that the players who win these major tournaments, probably aren't the best cash game players and probably don't understand or have the discipline to be winning players under normal circumstances. Anyways, bottom line, have to accumulate somehow, playing winning poker isn't enough so far.
The good news is, I've had a lot of success in the side games. There has been a 20-40 mixed game at the rio the past few days (badugi, 2-7triple draw, omaha8 and stud8) that I've take a whole lot of bets out of, beat the 30-60 omaha8 at the bellagio, the no limit game at the rio and I'm up a few thousand online since I've been here but as I'm writing this blog I've just lost a few flips for stacks in a very aggressive 6max game. I'm looking to play a bit higher but there's a real gap in the limits here, the next largest mix game is the 80-160 game in the bellagio which I'm sure is a might tougher than the 20-40 at the rio and will play huge. It'd be the biggest limit structure game I would have ever played if I decide to sit. If there is a lot of stud and omaha in the mix I'd be more incline. The draw games, badugi and deuce are very swingy in that often times you'll have to see the draws to the end and can't/shouldn't give up like you can in stud8 vs. an opponent's board.
Anyways, I hope cash continues to go well, I hope the tournaments go better for all three of us and mostly I hope to continue to learn. I have made a few higher playing friends here that have offered me a sweat (watching them play and seeing their cards). One of them plays in just about the highest game going so I hope I get that opportunity.
Lastly, the starting table contained Rafi Amit, a two time omaha bracelet winner at the world series of poker and Simpson's co-creator Sam Simon. We all had a pretty good time and Sam drew a picture of bart simpson and signed it (out of his own volition!!). Pretty interesting. Rafi is an avid basketball fan and we argued NBA 'what-if's' for a while before I busted out.
Anyways, cross your fingers! I need the chips!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Event 16: Omaha Hi-Lo 8/better Split.
Today's 1k (5ok Horse) satellite didn't go well. I came in ~22/80. I accumulated enough chips to be 5/45 at one point but lost a few limit hold 'em hands vs. short stacks, got 3/4 scooped in an Omaha8 hand and that was all she wrote. Would've been nice to get that 52k package (um, obviously). The good news was that I was knocked out early enough to make the 5:00pm 2k buy in event at the World Series; Omaha 8/better.
Here's the thing. I can say it over and over again but you've got to run like god in these things. I made it to day 2 but I have almost 0 chips and we're still no where near the money. I think there's something like 178/583 left, money starts at 60 probably and I have about 1 big bet left. The good news is I have 8 hands to ship it in there as I'm on the button to start day 2. I'm not trying to play like a nit, or short stack my way into the money, I'm just sickly card dead and realize that unless I just want to spew away 2k, I want to look for a good spot to shove it in. I was up above average after level 5 with about 9k but it's been a steady decline since then. No real bad beats just level after level of napkins. I'll tell you this though. It's disgusting watching some of these pros accumulate chips. I don't want to disrespect anyone but it's silly the hands some of these guys throw over but they HIT !!!, they hit and they accumulate and they get praise for taking the grossest long shots into a showdown.
example 1:
Q866 (pro) vs. A2Kx (chump amateur)
flop: KT4 (check by chump, bet by pro, check raise by chump, pro just calls)
turn: 6 (2 outter, sure....... bet by chump, raise by pro, raise by chump, 4bet by pro, call)
river J (bet, raise, call)... pro's set wins.
JJT3 (pro) vs. A2xx (another chump)
flop 22Q (check by pro, bet by chump, call by pro)
turn, 8, river 9.... sure, straight wins the pot.
I mean... I worked my ass off to be patient and play good but there's no way I've had a +ev spot to gamble. I know how long a shot these hands are to hit so I want to find a good spot. You know the flip side to this argument is you should be in there firing your ass off with any 4 cards and hoping your opponent A. folds or B. you donk your way into winning hands.
I don't want to lament my luck or talk about how 'hot' everyone else runs but I'm supremely frustrated watching these guys bad beat their way into huge chip leads with the biggest donkey plays ever. Sooooo, game plan tomorrow... find a nice spot in the first 8 hands and shove it in hoping to scoop. I'll have to gamble a lot tomorrow if I want to make the money but the late Jack Strauss won the main event in 1982 with literally 1 chip and I have 1 whole big bet left so I guess it could be worse.
Cross your fingers. lol, i might start playing worse and firing, perhaps that's what I'm doing wrong.
Here's the thing. I can say it over and over again but you've got to run like god in these things. I made it to day 2 but I have almost 0 chips and we're still no where near the money. I think there's something like 178/583 left, money starts at 60 probably and I have about 1 big bet left. The good news is I have 8 hands to ship it in there as I'm on the button to start day 2. I'm not trying to play like a nit, or short stack my way into the money, I'm just sickly card dead and realize that unless I just want to spew away 2k, I want to look for a good spot to shove it in. I was up above average after level 5 with about 9k but it's been a steady decline since then. No real bad beats just level after level of napkins. I'll tell you this though. It's disgusting watching some of these pros accumulate chips. I don't want to disrespect anyone but it's silly the hands some of these guys throw over but they HIT !!!, they hit and they accumulate and they get praise for taking the grossest long shots into a showdown.
example 1:
Q866 (pro) vs. A2Kx (chump amateur)
flop: KT4 (check by chump, bet by pro, check raise by chump, pro just calls)
turn: 6 (2 outter, sure....... bet by chump, raise by pro, raise by chump, 4bet by pro, call)
river J (bet, raise, call)... pro's set wins.
JJT3 (pro) vs. A2xx (another chump)
flop 22Q (check by pro, bet by chump, call by pro)
turn, 8, river 9.... sure, straight wins the pot.
I mean... I worked my ass off to be patient and play good but there's no way I've had a +ev spot to gamble. I know how long a shot these hands are to hit so I want to find a good spot. You know the flip side to this argument is you should be in there firing your ass off with any 4 cards and hoping your opponent A. folds or B. you donk your way into winning hands.
I don't want to lament my luck or talk about how 'hot' everyone else runs but I'm supremely frustrated watching these guys bad beat their way into huge chip leads with the biggest donkey plays ever. Sooooo, game plan tomorrow... find a nice spot in the first 8 hands and shove it in hoping to scoop. I'll have to gamble a lot tomorrow if I want to make the money but the late Jack Strauss won the main event in 1982 with literally 1 chip and I have 1 whole big bet left so I guess it could be worse.
Cross your fingers. lol, i might start playing worse and firing, perhaps that's what I'm doing wrong.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
a few updates.
Andrew scoops! There was a 2k buy-in deep stack event at the Bellagio today that Andrew took down 30k for a 6-way final table chop. If they had played it out, it was 65k for first. I think Andrew was a big favourite being 2nd in chips with 6 left as he's mercilessly aggressive and those guys wanted to nit their ways up the ladder. Wes and I played a 20-40 stud game at the Bellagio when all of this was going on. I dumped $100 in what may have been the easiest stud game I've ever seen. It was disgraceful to lose in that game, a monkey could have beat it. Kick up the limits and lock the doors, lol.
The night before Andrew and I chop a ~$1600 win in 5-10PLO at the Rio. It was again, a great game. I had a massive $3k hold up with AAKdTd in a 3 way all-in. The offer was out to run it once or twice but I decided it would have been hard to win it twice without double suited aces so I opted once as a 50% favourite vs. the two hands. I think running it twice is a fine idea once two hands have seen a flop and got it all in there but I feel I lose a lot of equity if I allow two hands to run the turn and river twice against me. I know it decreases variance but I gain a lot of value preflop and allow myself to loose it when we do the multiway turn and river re-runs when all in. If it were heads up I would have felt differently. I'll have to look into it.
A really interesting hand came up before I left. Long story short, I folded a full house. I had 889T double suited on a AA8 board. It was straddled 5 ways preflop, pot was $200. Guy 3rd to act bets pot with $1400 behind. It comes to me with one guy left behind me who looked interested and the bettor had declined running it twice before. Now the math here is simple. I could be drawing stone dead to A8 or, if he has Axxx with three live cards, I'm a 58% favourite at best (if my case 8 was live, if his side cards didn't duplicate mine). Anyways. I folded after a long consideration. I was out of position, I had a guy behind me who looked interested (ended up folding), I had a player who may not run it twice if he saw my hand (thinking incorrectly he was favoured) and if I flatted out of position, I would be invested not knowing where I stood had he bet the river. The most important reason I mucked was that the game was so good. If you look for slightly good situation, 55%'s in PLO, you can find them all day long. These guys played poorly enough I felt my money could easily find it's way in there as a 75% favourite instead of a slight one. I am seeking opinions on this as I really don't know whether or not it's a good argument, a terrible fold or a slight mistake.
Played a lot online yesterday and qualified for a 1k HORSE satellite (for the 50k event here at the wsop). It just started, 88 people, two 52k packages so a nice overlay of 16k). Not sure whether or not I'll just take the money if I can get there. That's a considerable amount for me but I'm sure Andrew will want the money in action. Anyways... life is good. Perhaps play the 2k omaha8/better tournament tonight if this horse satellite gets over with in time. Oh, one little story. I guess Phil Ivey has to play all the tournaments for FullTilt, it's part of his deal or something. My friend Mark played the $1500 limit hold em event and was at his table and Phil was cheering for hands to beat his so he could get out of there. One hand he had KT on a KsTs4s board and him and some other guy got 8 bets in on the turn and river to put Phil all-in. Phil announces 'top-two' and the other guy says 'i have the nut flush', phil responds; 'yeah, you better have the nut flush'.
Moral of the story. If you play an event for the first time and see one of the best players in the world, don't be intimidated. They may be the one who dumps there chips off to you because they'd rather be golfing, shooting craps, playing cash games or just otherwise uninterested. Lucky for them this was the case for mr. Ivey in the $1500 LHE event.
The night before Andrew and I chop a ~$1600 win in 5-10PLO at the Rio. It was again, a great game. I had a massive $3k hold up with AAKdTd in a 3 way all-in. The offer was out to run it once or twice but I decided it would have been hard to win it twice without double suited aces so I opted once as a 50% favourite vs. the two hands. I think running it twice is a fine idea once two hands have seen a flop and got it all in there but I feel I lose a lot of equity if I allow two hands to run the turn and river twice against me. I know it decreases variance but I gain a lot of value preflop and allow myself to loose it when we do the multiway turn and river re-runs when all in. If it were heads up I would have felt differently. I'll have to look into it.
A really interesting hand came up before I left. Long story short, I folded a full house. I had 889T double suited on a AA8 board. It was straddled 5 ways preflop, pot was $200. Guy 3rd to act bets pot with $1400 behind. It comes to me with one guy left behind me who looked interested and the bettor had declined running it twice before. Now the math here is simple. I could be drawing stone dead to A8 or, if he has Axxx with three live cards, I'm a 58% favourite at best (if my case 8 was live, if his side cards didn't duplicate mine). Anyways. I folded after a long consideration. I was out of position, I had a guy behind me who looked interested (ended up folding), I had a player who may not run it twice if he saw my hand (thinking incorrectly he was favoured) and if I flatted out of position, I would be invested not knowing where I stood had he bet the river. The most important reason I mucked was that the game was so good. If you look for slightly good situation, 55%'s in PLO, you can find them all day long. These guys played poorly enough I felt my money could easily find it's way in there as a 75% favourite instead of a slight one. I am seeking opinions on this as I really don't know whether or not it's a good argument, a terrible fold or a slight mistake.
Played a lot online yesterday and qualified for a 1k HORSE satellite (for the 50k event here at the wsop). It just started, 88 people, two 52k packages so a nice overlay of 16k). Not sure whether or not I'll just take the money if I can get there. That's a considerable amount for me but I'm sure Andrew will want the money in action. Anyways... life is good. Perhaps play the 2k omaha8/better tournament tonight if this horse satellite gets over with in time. Oh, one little story. I guess Phil Ivey has to play all the tournaments for FullTilt, it's part of his deal or something. My friend Mark played the $1500 limit hold em event and was at his table and Phil was cheering for hands to beat his so he could get out of there. One hand he had KT on a KsTs4s board and him and some other guy got 8 bets in on the turn and river to put Phil all-in. Phil announces 'top-two' and the other guy says 'i have the nut flush', phil responds; 'yeah, you better have the nut flush'.
Moral of the story. If you play an event for the first time and see one of the best players in the world, don't be intimidated. They may be the one who dumps there chips off to you because they'd rather be golfing, shooting craps, playing cash games or just otherwise uninterested. Lucky for them this was the case for mr. Ivey in the $1500 LHE event.
Friday, June 6, 2008
mixed omaha/stud hi-lo 8/better
I won't hold the outcome until the end of the story, I was knocked out around 60 from the money at the end of the 8th level, AGAIN!!!, lol. I guess I need to avoid the 8th hour of tournaments here. Interesting tournament though, my starting table of 8 contained Chris Reslock, Joe Cassidy, some high stakes internet player and Daniel Negreanu. It was interesting in that my biggest question mark regarding players like Daniel/Phil Ivey/Hellmuth, is how many hands do they play under these structures? How hard are they pushing in marginal spots? Hand ranges and all strategic adjustments they make in tournaments. Unfortunately Daniel got very unlucky in a few key stud8 hands and was out early in level 5. If you can picture taking draw out after beat after card out and then having to take pictures and sign autographs in between. Anyways, like you can imagine, he plays well, is enjoyable to be at the table at and generally seems to be as kind as he is portrayed. The class of the table last night, in my opinion, was Joe Cassidy. He plays very, very well. I never saw him out of line and he never called a bet without a positive expectation to do so.
I lost a few very key pots last night that determined the outcome of my tournament. The first hand I lost was in Omaha8/better for a 6k pot. I had 90% equity on the flop with As2s6s6h vs. QhQs9s4s on a 6h8h9s. I have bottom set and nut low draw vs. an overpair+flush draw with no low possibilities. Bloop a Q on the turn then an Ace on the river to counterfeit me.
The second crucial pot I lost came in Stud8/better. I start KhKs As (52%) vs. 7d8d9d (48%) at the 600-1200 level. Anyways, it's not a mathematically bad beat as our two hands run fairly close in equity when heads up. I bet every street with buried KK, board of A552 on 6th street. His reads 9Q56. He raised my board on 6th. I looked at him and based on his play up to that point, just knew he started 789 and had made a straight that had me drawing to a K or 5 just to win a high (he's still drawing to a live low for at least a low split). Anyways I mucked and lost around 5k on the hand. I then start A234 after fourth street in another stud 8 pot vs. AA74. I end up making a 7smooth low with no high and the AA pulls a 2 and 3 to 3/4 chop me in another pot. So these three pots crippled me. I ended up busting with KKA vs. 567. Our boards ran out KKATTQ9 vs. 5679K28. His 9 high straight on the river knocked me out of my 2nd tournament.
I know these mixed games are complicated to write about but you have to run super hot in these tournaments if you expect to go deep. Losing the 55% favourite hands HU in large levels just can't happen with a shallow stack and I definitely can't be losing these 90% favourites. Anyways... onwards and upwards. I think I'll take today and tomorrow off tournaments. There is another Omaha8/better 2k buy in tournament on Sunday I'll wait for. The overlay (money put in by bad players) is large in these mixed tournaments and Omaha8 especially. It's a grind and I miss no limit but I think my expected value is larger in these. I didn't feel out-classed yesterday despite having those 4 big name players at my table. Maybe it's over-confidence but I mean it's just poker. I've played 500k hands this year online in all the games and that's probably more than Daniel, Reslock and Cassidy have played live between the three of them in the last 2.5 years. Anyways. I'm going to try and qualify for the 50k horse online. It'd be a blast to play in that event. Outcome's irregardless.
Stay Low.. talk to you all soon.
I lost a few very key pots last night that determined the outcome of my tournament. The first hand I lost was in Omaha8/better for a 6k pot. I had 90% equity on the flop with As2s6s6h vs. QhQs9s4s on a 6h8h9s. I have bottom set and nut low draw vs. an overpair+flush draw with no low possibilities. Bloop a Q on the turn then an Ace on the river to counterfeit me.
The second crucial pot I lost came in Stud8/better. I start KhKs As (52%) vs. 7d8d9d (48%) at the 600-1200 level. Anyways, it's not a mathematically bad beat as our two hands run fairly close in equity when heads up. I bet every street with buried KK, board of A552 on 6th street. His reads 9Q56. He raised my board on 6th. I looked at him and based on his play up to that point, just knew he started 789 and had made a straight that had me drawing to a K or 5 just to win a high (he's still drawing to a live low for at least a low split). Anyways I mucked and lost around 5k on the hand. I then start A234 after fourth street in another stud 8 pot vs. AA74. I end up making a 7smooth low with no high and the AA pulls a 2 and 3 to 3/4 chop me in another pot. So these three pots crippled me. I ended up busting with KKA vs. 567. Our boards ran out KKATTQ9 vs. 5679K28. His 9 high straight on the river knocked me out of my 2nd tournament.
I know these mixed games are complicated to write about but you have to run super hot in these tournaments if you expect to go deep. Losing the 55% favourite hands HU in large levels just can't happen with a shallow stack and I definitely can't be losing these 90% favourites. Anyways... onwards and upwards. I think I'll take today and tomorrow off tournaments. There is another Omaha8/better 2k buy in tournament on Sunday I'll wait for. The overlay (money put in by bad players) is large in these mixed tournaments and Omaha8 especially. It's a grind and I miss no limit but I think my expected value is larger in these. I didn't feel out-classed yesterday despite having those 4 big name players at my table. Maybe it's over-confidence but I mean it's just poker. I've played 500k hands this year online in all the games and that's probably more than Daniel, Reslock and Cassidy have played live between the three of them in the last 2.5 years. Anyways. I'm going to try and qualify for the 50k horse online. It'd be a blast to play in that event. Outcome's irregardless.
Stay Low.. talk to you all soon.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
live action!
So today, moved out of the gold coast, watched a fellow Canadian Pat Pezzin make the 5k mixed hold'em event final table, met up with andrew and scooped some live pots playing no limit hold'em at the wynn.
so usually, not too many interesting things crop up at 2-5 nlhe games but today was different.
i started the game in the 1 seat with $500 and in walks some action. Some high stakes pro with his girlfriend sit in the 9 and 10 seat with around $1000 and $15,000 respectively. That's right, this guy sits with $15000 in a 2-5 nlhe game, what's better, I have position on him. So, I make a full house, get up to around $650, then with QT on a 9T499 board, the hero with 15k sets me all in on the river... i mucked my hand (he told me later he had the last 9, whether we believe that is another thing). So, under the gun, when i have $550 in front, he makes it $1000 to go without looking at his cards. I have QQ and call. They hold. Up to $1100. Then, I make a small flush vs. his girlfriend for a $400 pot and that's the session. So thanks to my fortunate holdings and table position on these two spots, I make ~$900 (a good portion of tomorrow's $2500 Omaha8/better and Stud8/better event at 5).
The most interesting part of this table came in two hands I wasn't a part of. He layed the table 6-5 for anyone that wanted to go all in blind with him. He did with one kid for a $2k pot and lost. Then he made it $5k to go utg blind, some kid called off a $800 in the small blind with AToffsuit. So by the river the board read 56788. The kid only had $125 actually 'in' the pot (but was declared all in with his AT faceup - no pair Ace high) and the hero offer's the kid out of the pot for the $125, effectively saving the guy $675... the kid gambled, said no, and lost to 52offsuit.
Anyways, hope this recap made sense as it was a very interesting experience. I spoke with this guy afterwards, apparently he'll be on poker after dark's cash game coming up with Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, etc. He loses 125k in that game so I imagine losing $4500 in the 2-4nlhe game didn't really dent this fellow.
Okay, cross your fingers, up to bat with Omaha8/Stud8 tomorrow.
so usually, not too many interesting things crop up at 2-5 nlhe games but today was different.
i started the game in the 1 seat with $500 and in walks some action. Some high stakes pro with his girlfriend sit in the 9 and 10 seat with around $1000 and $15,000 respectively. That's right, this guy sits with $15000 in a 2-5 nlhe game, what's better, I have position on him. So, I make a full house, get up to around $650, then with QT on a 9T499 board, the hero with 15k sets me all in on the river... i mucked my hand (he told me later he had the last 9, whether we believe that is another thing). So, under the gun, when i have $550 in front, he makes it $1000 to go without looking at his cards. I have QQ and call. They hold. Up to $1100. Then, I make a small flush vs. his girlfriend for a $400 pot and that's the session. So thanks to my fortunate holdings and table position on these two spots, I make ~$900 (a good portion of tomorrow's $2500 Omaha8/better and Stud8/better event at 5).
The most interesting part of this table came in two hands I wasn't a part of. He layed the table 6-5 for anyone that wanted to go all in blind with him. He did with one kid for a $2k pot and lost. Then he made it $5k to go utg blind, some kid called off a $800 in the small blind with AToffsuit. So by the river the board read 56788. The kid only had $125 actually 'in' the pot (but was declared all in with his AT faceup - no pair Ace high) and the hero offer's the kid out of the pot for the $125, effectively saving the guy $675... the kid gambled, said no, and lost to 52offsuit.
Anyways, hope this recap made sense as it was a very interesting experience. I spoke with this guy afterwards, apparently he'll be on poker after dark's cash game coming up with Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, etc. He loses 125k in that game so I imagine losing $4500 in the 2-4nlhe game didn't really dent this fellow.
Okay, cross your fingers, up to bat with Omaha8/Stud8 tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
no day 2 for this guy.
Well I did what i could. I lasted until 15 minutes to go in the final level (level 8: 500-1000) of day 1. 830 people started and I went out somewhere in the neighborhood of 205 (80 paid). I have no really bad hands to post, nor good ones, it came down to being really card dead for the final 3 levels as I went into dinner with an above average stack of 5200. I couldn't have asked for a better table draw as 7/9 were spewing chips all over the place, just few landed in my stack. Omaha8/better isn't really a game where you can snow through a lot of hands, especially not vs. the type of players I had the good fortune of playing with today.
I ended up chopping a hand with the nut low and 20 outs for the high as well vs. dry aces but missed in level 5, that may have been the beginning of the end for me. The final all-in came with 900 chips mid-table with Ad3s4s9h ( I didn't even have enough to raise the full amount!) and ended up getting scooped by two others. I figure I had about 20% equity vs. both their hands combined but it really did look like AA23 after what I suffered through in levels 5,6+7.
No complaints mind you, this is limit tournament poker. I thought I played as well as I could I just came up short when the limits rose. Such a juicy table draw though, I'm still wishing they locked the doors and made it a limit cash game instead.
I'm not sure what's next on the list, I move out of the hotel and into the house with everyone tomorrow at some time. Looking forward to seeing Andrew and Derek. Anyways...I'm going to get some sleep. Strike 1
I ended up chopping a hand with the nut low and 20 outs for the high as well vs. dry aces but missed in level 5, that may have been the beginning of the end for me. The final all-in came with 900 chips mid-table with Ad3s4s9h ( I didn't even have enough to raise the full amount!) and ended up getting scooped by two others. I figure I had about 20% equity vs. both their hands combined but it really did look like AA23 after what I suffered through in levels 5,6+7.
No complaints mind you, this is limit tournament poker. I thought I played as well as I could I just came up short when the limits rose. Such a juicy table draw though, I'm still wishing they locked the doors and made it a limit cash game instead.
I'm not sure what's next on the list, I move out of the hotel and into the house with everyone tomorrow at some time. Looking forward to seeing Andrew and Derek. Anyways...I'm going to get some sleep. Strike 1
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
gearing up for event #6: limit omaha8/better
Life is good.
The first event on the schedule starts in 2 hours, limit omaha 8/better hi-lo split. It's event #6 on the calendar, $1500 buy-in.
I'm staying at the gold coast (right across the street from the Rio, where the events are played) until tomorrow. Andrew, Derek, Wes and Christina get here tomorrow and we'll move into the house then. I've spent a bunch of time with my friends Caroline and Hector who live here... they've been great.
So, played a bunch of cash games so far... here's the quick run down.
1. Sunday night, $4-8 limit mixed game at the Wynn (2-7 triple draw, badugi, stud8/better, A-5 triple draw and Crazy Pineapple). Without trying to explain this mix as it's kind of obscure, it was a game that Caroline tried to organize for me but that's the highest we could fill a table. I ended up +$37 or something.
2. Monday, $2-5PLO at the Rio. +$100
$20-40 mixed game at the Rio (stud8,Omaha8,2-7 Triple Draw, Badugi) +$200
$20-40 Omaha 8/better with a Half Kill (30-60) +$200 (wynn)
$10-20 Omaha 8/better with a Half Kill (15-30) +$150 (wynn)
$5-5 PLO +$200 (wynn)
$2-5 NLHE -$800 (wynn)
So I played a ton of hours yesterday and tried to keep moving to good games but to be honest, except for a few marks in the PLO games, all the games were tough and I'm not sure there was much value to playing in them despite the wins. The NLHE session was full of marks but I got barbecued. As I've mentioned to everyone who's asked how this trip will go, I've got to make sure I adjust my hand ranges to live play. Online is way different than these live NLHE games. The hand that stacked me for $500 was silly and it'll sound silly when i re-tell it but I'm not entirely sure I hate my play (obviously I hated the outcome).
1. $2-5 NLHE at the wynn. (I have $500). Everyone folds to the mid-late table, one guy limps, this college kid with the earphones and card protector limps, I have 55 on the button. I make it $20 to go, (take control of the hand, build a pot and disguise my holdings... pretty standard). The blinds fold and the first limper calls, the kid now makes it $95 to go.
Now I have a couple of things I'm thinking about.
1. He CAN'T have a big hand here. He was fine limping in 2nd in late position with AA or KK or QQ? Very doubtful for a NLHE player but even more so from a young player.... We tend to be more aggressive, understanding ranges and knowing that playing a hand this way IMO is -EV. So i put him somewhere in the AQ, 99-JJ range even this is probably a tight estimate.
2. He knows that my range is huge here.... not a defining raise and I'm on the puck... it could be 34s here... looked like more of a pot sweetener than anything.
3. He's out of position and making it 4+x my raise, he's looking to end things now.
4. I have no information on him so he might be able to get away with this unorthodox/fishy line.
So, i think about this for 30 seconds and decide that i can pick up the pot here, so I shove in $500 to win $140, he snap calls with KK and he wins the hand. Now he's a massive favorite in this spot and on the surface my play looks terrible, I'm not sure it's not either, lol. BUT. I would say my play forces a ton of better hands to fold than 55 and he probably shows up with a hand that can call there (AKs, AA, KK, QQ) maybe 5% of the time. So I'm eager to here from NLHE players how atrocious my play there way or how unlucky it was for him to play his hand that ass backwards vs. someone who'll take rags and jam with them. Who knows, educational hand though. Live players do play funny I'll tell you that.
Second hand for a $300 loss or so was my top two vs. and overpair got counterfeited on the river and he made a better two-pair. Unlucky river, good spot/bad outcome. No problems here. Probably shouldn't have been in the hand OOP vs. an overpair anyways. He did spew a lot of chips when we got the money in though.
So that was that, played fine all day, beat every game but the last (unfortunately) and I think I wound up somewhere in the -$200 range for the day.
Looking back, here are a few observations. PLO is going to be hit or miss for me live. The games are either really good or they're populated by good players. Either way, the 2-5$ and 5-5$ games have no cap on the buy ins so they play HUGE. I don't have enough money here to sit down deep (with having to worry about tournament buy-ins) with these guys so I'll be buying in for 100x BB mostly. Unfortunately I'll have to grind up before I can really tangle with the big stacks. So far out of the say 25 players I've played PLO against, there has only been 5 or so that are real live ones. I will say that everyone overestimates the value of their made hands vs. draws and people will fold in +ev spots too easily. I made a kamikaze play yesterday with two pair vs. two players because I was short stacked and there was enough in there already. Original bettor folds and the last to act shows me 9JKA on a QT43 board and mucks it to my all in bet. He was getting like 2.7-1 to make the call and with 16 outs with one card to come.. he's taking slightly the worst of it folding.
Live players are so much more worried about the outcome of a pot then they are about the expected value their plays have. It's a strange thing but I guess when you play maybe 20 hands an hour (in PLO) it will lead to demonized beliefs. Anyways... enough bellyaching. Life is good. Saw my favorite pro Berry Johnson yesterday... 80 years young, came right up, remembered my name, shook my hand (we played a few events together last year) and wished me well. He's pretty unknown but a really top notch player in all the games. Oh and Justin, saw Amnon yesterday, they're running 3x a week so get down here, we need to make some basketball prop bets.
On a really different note. Buffet's are bad for society, Micheal Johnson giving those medals back is crazy-respectable but if you've seen him in his prime you've got to scratch your head at what he needed to look like that. Guiney, what the *&^* happened to your wings last night and Lakers in 6.
The first event on the schedule starts in 2 hours, limit omaha 8/better hi-lo split. It's event #6 on the calendar, $1500 buy-in.
I'm staying at the gold coast (right across the street from the Rio, where the events are played) until tomorrow. Andrew, Derek, Wes and Christina get here tomorrow and we'll move into the house then. I've spent a bunch of time with my friends Caroline and Hector who live here... they've been great.
So, played a bunch of cash games so far... here's the quick run down.
1. Sunday night, $4-8 limit mixed game at the Wynn (2-7 triple draw, badugi, stud8/better, A-5 triple draw and Crazy Pineapple). Without trying to explain this mix as it's kind of obscure, it was a game that Caroline tried to organize for me but that's the highest we could fill a table. I ended up +$37 or something.
2. Monday, $2-5PLO at the Rio. +$100
$20-40 mixed game at the Rio (stud8,Omaha8,2-7 Triple Draw, Badugi) +$200
$20-40 Omaha 8/better with a Half Kill (30-60) +$200 (wynn)
$10-20 Omaha 8/better with a Half Kill (15-30) +$150 (wynn)
$5-5 PLO +$200 (wynn)
$2-5 NLHE -$800 (wynn)
So I played a ton of hours yesterday and tried to keep moving to good games but to be honest, except for a few marks in the PLO games, all the games were tough and I'm not sure there was much value to playing in them despite the wins. The NLHE session was full of marks but I got barbecued. As I've mentioned to everyone who's asked how this trip will go, I've got to make sure I adjust my hand ranges to live play. Online is way different than these live NLHE games. The hand that stacked me for $500 was silly and it'll sound silly when i re-tell it but I'm not entirely sure I hate my play (obviously I hated the outcome).
1. $2-5 NLHE at the wynn. (I have $500). Everyone folds to the mid-late table, one guy limps, this college kid with the earphones and card protector limps, I have 55 on the button. I make it $20 to go, (take control of the hand, build a pot and disguise my holdings... pretty standard). The blinds fold and the first limper calls, the kid now makes it $95 to go.
Now I have a couple of things I'm thinking about.
1. He CAN'T have a big hand here. He was fine limping in 2nd in late position with AA or KK or QQ? Very doubtful for a NLHE player but even more so from a young player.... We tend to be more aggressive, understanding ranges and knowing that playing a hand this way IMO is -EV. So i put him somewhere in the AQ, 99-JJ range even this is probably a tight estimate.
2. He knows that my range is huge here.... not a defining raise and I'm on the puck... it could be 34s here... looked like more of a pot sweetener than anything.
3. He's out of position and making it 4+x my raise, he's looking to end things now.
4. I have no information on him so he might be able to get away with this unorthodox/fishy line.
So, i think about this for 30 seconds and decide that i can pick up the pot here, so I shove in $500 to win $140, he snap calls with KK and he wins the hand. Now he's a massive favorite in this spot and on the surface my play looks terrible, I'm not sure it's not either, lol. BUT. I would say my play forces a ton of better hands to fold than 55 and he probably shows up with a hand that can call there (AKs, AA, KK, QQ) maybe 5% of the time. So I'm eager to here from NLHE players how atrocious my play there way or how unlucky it was for him to play his hand that ass backwards vs. someone who'll take rags and jam with them. Who knows, educational hand though. Live players do play funny I'll tell you that.
Second hand for a $300 loss or so was my top two vs. and overpair got counterfeited on the river and he made a better two-pair. Unlucky river, good spot/bad outcome. No problems here. Probably shouldn't have been in the hand OOP vs. an overpair anyways. He did spew a lot of chips when we got the money in though.
So that was that, played fine all day, beat every game but the last (unfortunately) and I think I wound up somewhere in the -$200 range for the day.
Looking back, here are a few observations. PLO is going to be hit or miss for me live. The games are either really good or they're populated by good players. Either way, the 2-5$ and 5-5$ games have no cap on the buy ins so they play HUGE. I don't have enough money here to sit down deep (with having to worry about tournament buy-ins) with these guys so I'll be buying in for 100x BB mostly. Unfortunately I'll have to grind up before I can really tangle with the big stacks. So far out of the say 25 players I've played PLO against, there has only been 5 or so that are real live ones. I will say that everyone overestimates the value of their made hands vs. draws and people will fold in +ev spots too easily. I made a kamikaze play yesterday with two pair vs. two players because I was short stacked and there was enough in there already. Original bettor folds and the last to act shows me 9JKA on a QT43 board and mucks it to my all in bet. He was getting like 2.7-1 to make the call and with 16 outs with one card to come.. he's taking slightly the worst of it folding.
Live players are so much more worried about the outcome of a pot then they are about the expected value their plays have. It's a strange thing but I guess when you play maybe 20 hands an hour (in PLO) it will lead to demonized beliefs. Anyways... enough bellyaching. Life is good. Saw my favorite pro Berry Johnson yesterday... 80 years young, came right up, remembered my name, shook my hand (we played a few events together last year) and wished me well. He's pretty unknown but a really top notch player in all the games. Oh and Justin, saw Amnon yesterday, they're running 3x a week so get down here, we need to make some basketball prop bets.
On a really different note. Buffet's are bad for society, Micheal Johnson giving those medals back is crazy-respectable but if you've seen him in his prime you've got to scratch your head at what he needed to look like that. Guiney, what the *&^* happened to your wings last night and Lakers in 6.
Friday, May 30, 2008
the calm before the storm...
And it all begins in 48 hours. What a hectic week it's been getting ready for this year's World Series. My mom's wedding is tomorrow and will be the week's culmination but perhaps the most difficult part came today. I owe whatever I have in a poker sense to a number of people but the biggest nod must go to my Grandpa Al, who played the first 7stud8/better hand with me when I was 12. I saw him today and we joked about those games and he had a bunch of questions about this year's Series, he even remembered what position I placed in last year's omaha8 event. Whatever good I have in me I owe to my Grandpa Al. He played was a huge part of my childhood so it was a great to finally see him today and a great reminder that I've got a bunch of people who would like to see me do well and who have supported this unorthodox use of my time.
I played SMALL last night as one of my closest friends from home wanted to go to the Great Blue Heron 'the tent' for a 5-10 limit hold'em session. I think we both won about $120 over 4-5 hours. That's a bit above what I'd expect in that game (~1.4 BB/hour) but it was action packed for the most boring form of poker. It's probably the worst poker pit in the world but with the old regulars there, it felt like a reunion (Soo-Ping says hi JG, cheque's in the mail). I did my best to focus though as it's been a year since I've played live. I had a chance to get a couple of hundred hands in tonight. The action on PartyPoker was fantastic and I ended up winner in 2-4 + 5-10 FR NLHE and some 2-4 PLO but I had a really LAG maniac right behind me so I was playing 2-4-18 everytime I wanted to take a flop. Here are some of the highlight hands....
The first one is a PLO hand I get stacked off in for $400. I limp with AAxx. The maniac pots behind me and the whole world calls, I try to wrap preflop to ~$160 but still get three callers. The flop is bad for me but I had a note on this guy saying he makes 'powerplays in multiway preflop-raised pots" so I went with the note, jammed to push out the preflop maniac (this flop doesn't hit a large part of his range anyways and even if it does and he calls the over jam, I'll still be getting 3-1 with an overpair, gut shot J and backdoor club draw.) The hand I think I'm most likely up against is a flush draw, which, if that's all, im still a favourite against. Anyways, long story, he's got about what I thought, flush draw +pair of JJ. Preflop, he's a 2.2-1 dog approx. and on the flop it's a dead flip (51-49). So he wins the $800 coin flip with a turn spade.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2689684
This 2-4 full-ring, no-limit hold'em hand is interesting because I take a really really odd line with the nuts. For no other reason than a gambler's desire to play a big pot with AA, I decide to flat call an early position open to $14, then after 4 or so other's do the same, the SB decides a squeeze is in order and makes it $100 to go. The only thing that's more fun than flat calling the first time is doing it a second time so I flat the 3bet and so does two others. Q high flop, I come out of the weeds and jam the flop.. the AA hold and scoop a $900+ pot. I think the flat of the 3bet might be -EV because it allowed 3 people to get to the flop with me but in this instance it worked out okay. If I were any deeper than the original 100BB I would never play my hand like this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2689709
My laptop is not getting along very well with my family's wireless router so I have lost the two hand histories for the big pots I won tonight. First was with AhKh vs. a guy's 2-3o that he tried to run a huge bluff on me with. It was a creative float on the flop with bottom pair, floated my turn bet when I made the nut flush, then he jammed vs. my value bet on the river. I held the nuts so his triple float bluff went south. I've never seen such an elaborate deep stack play online before so I was sort of shocked.
The last was a guy pulled my move, 2-4$ full ring, he opened utg+2 with AJo for 77$ dollars, i tanked then min-raised with AA. He called oop (out of position) and then led a 339 flop, i flatted, turn was a 2, he jammed, I called. Pretty straight forward.
Cut the session sort of 2k hands as I played a pot pretty poorly at 5-10 full ring and I can't stomach it enough to continue.
So I fly out sunday night at around 9pm. My friend Caroline who I used to play LHE with in Brantford is a vegas resident now so I guess I'll see her sunday night for dinner and a little mixed game session at the Wynn. I'll be posting much more often once I get down there.
Best wishes, talk to you soon.
I played SMALL last night as one of my closest friends from home wanted to go to the Great Blue Heron 'the tent' for a 5-10 limit hold'em session. I think we both won about $120 over 4-5 hours. That's a bit above what I'd expect in that game (~1.4 BB/hour) but it was action packed for the most boring form of poker. It's probably the worst poker pit in the world but with the old regulars there, it felt like a reunion (Soo-Ping says hi JG, cheque's in the mail). I did my best to focus though as it's been a year since I've played live. I had a chance to get a couple of hundred hands in tonight. The action on PartyPoker was fantastic and I ended up winner in 2-4 + 5-10 FR NLHE and some 2-4 PLO but I had a really LAG maniac right behind me so I was playing 2-4-18 everytime I wanted to take a flop. Here are some of the highlight hands....
The first one is a PLO hand I get stacked off in for $400. I limp with AAxx. The maniac pots behind me and the whole world calls, I try to wrap preflop to ~$160 but still get three callers. The flop is bad for me but I had a note on this guy saying he makes 'powerplays in multiway preflop-raised pots" so I went with the note, jammed to push out the preflop maniac (this flop doesn't hit a large part of his range anyways and even if it does and he calls the over jam, I'll still be getting 3-1 with an overpair, gut shot J and backdoor club draw.) The hand I think I'm most likely up against is a flush draw, which, if that's all, im still a favourite against. Anyways, long story, he's got about what I thought, flush draw +pair of JJ. Preflop, he's a 2.2-1 dog approx. and on the flop it's a dead flip (51-49). So he wins the $800 coin flip with a turn spade.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2689684
This 2-4 full-ring, no-limit hold'em hand is interesting because I take a really really odd line with the nuts. For no other reason than a gambler's desire to play a big pot with AA, I decide to flat call an early position open to $14, then after 4 or so other's do the same, the SB decides a squeeze is in order and makes it $100 to go. The only thing that's more fun than flat calling the first time is doing it a second time so I flat the 3bet and so does two others. Q high flop, I come out of the weeds and jam the flop.. the AA hold and scoop a $900+ pot. I think the flat of the 3bet might be -EV because it allowed 3 people to get to the flop with me but in this instance it worked out okay. If I were any deeper than the original 100BB I would never play my hand like this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2689709
My laptop is not getting along very well with my family's wireless router so I have lost the two hand histories for the big pots I won tonight. First was with AhKh vs. a guy's 2-3o that he tried to run a huge bluff on me with. It was a creative float on the flop with bottom pair, floated my turn bet when I made the nut flush, then he jammed vs. my value bet on the river. I held the nuts so his triple float bluff went south. I've never seen such an elaborate deep stack play online before so I was sort of shocked.
The last was a guy pulled my move, 2-4$ full ring, he opened utg+2 with AJo for 77$ dollars, i tanked then min-raised with AA. He called oop (out of position) and then led a 339 flop, i flatted, turn was a 2, he jammed, I called. Pretty straight forward.
Cut the session sort of 2k hands as I played a pot pretty poorly at 5-10 full ring and I can't stomach it enough to continue.
So I fly out sunday night at around 9pm. My friend Caroline who I used to play LHE with in Brantford is a vegas resident now so I guess I'll see her sunday night for dinner and a little mixed game session at the Wynn. I'll be posting much more often once I get down there.
Best wishes, talk to you soon.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
short and sweet.
Today didn't see much in way of poker volume, but what their was went very well. I spent most of the day with my basketball team. The season's ending and one of our player's parents had us over for sort of a year end barbecue as I'm heading out soon. As long as this season's been and as much of a grind it was with it being the first year of the program, I'm really going to miss the players and relationships that basketball, especially with these guys, created. Assistant coaches, no matter at what level, and this being one of the highest, either have a massive impact or none.....and as far as a bittersweet ending goes, I'll never know whether or not I had one with any of them, young men don't exactly exercise catharsis, but I'm going to remember this season, and them, for a long time. It'll be very exciting to see what basketball has in store for these youngins', I guess I'll have to wait.... thankfully, for some of them it'll be ESPN that will cover it.
Onto poker.
Unfortunately, I can't replay any of the 34 hands of heads up 10-20 PLO I played during the Celtics' / Pistons' game but it was a great outcome for me. A player I didn't recognize was sitting short ($400) in a 6max 10-20 plo game (max buy-in being $2000, and way above my online roll as I think you need roughly 100k+ for that, especially HU) but I sat with him, also shortstacked because..... 1. If I had seen him before, he wasn't a regular and 2. If he was sitting shortstacked to start a game, he wasn't an exceptional player. So based on #2, I thought that despite not being in the mood for $400 flips, If I could push him around a bit early and he was worried about the money, than this was a good spot for me. I ended up stacking him off numerous times over 34 hands and I think he put the last of his roll on the table because once the odd-figured last buy in was done, he quit. I think I raised 32 /34 hands and CB only 10 flops or so.... the only times he felted a hand, he was behind and I held. Bottom line, I had the cheat code on and ran like a god.... he was un-lucky as this is an extremely rare occassion for a HU game (but he was an extremely rare opponent).
The next hand is from $2-4 PLO 8/better Hi-Lo split. 6max. I have mentioned this game before, and it's very complex but essentially it's PLOmaha but the pot is split between the high hand and the low hand. Obviously you want to win both sides.....If you can find a good game with inexperienced players, stacks grow in this game faster than any, cause it's so hard to escape with half facing large, pot sized bets. Anyways, here's a nice pot illustrating the importance of going both ways. I ended up scooping this pot as my opponent was trying to escape with an A6 for low and no high. I make the nut low with A3 and have KK for an overpair to the board which held up for high.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660946
I decided on not posting any no limit hands for today as they're all pretty much of the same ilk. Guys play passively vs. aggression and allow cards to come off that they shouldn't. It's taken me a long time to understand how to apply this loose-aggression as prescribed by my poker friends who've had a great deal more success than I have, but if today's any example, when you're running good, or when you get caught, this style pays for itself multiple times over. I got lucky in a bunch of hands today but like I said, passivity allows cards to come off that shouldn't in a no limit game, players get mad and then they play poorly against you AND, perhaps most importantly, there's a ton of fold equity when you're firing so much at pots. It's hard to call big bets with suspect hands vs. an aggressive opponent. It's a wonderful style but very difficult to time perfectly, which I'm nowhere near.
The cards are felting well right now and I really don't have any real coolers or bad beats to show thankfully. I hope it continues for me and friends over the next few weeks. Hope everything's well.
Onto poker.
Unfortunately, I can't replay any of the 34 hands of heads up 10-20 PLO I played during the Celtics' / Pistons' game but it was a great outcome for me. A player I didn't recognize was sitting short ($400) in a 6max 10-20 plo game (max buy-in being $2000, and way above my online roll as I think you need roughly 100k+ for that, especially HU) but I sat with him, also shortstacked because..... 1. If I had seen him before, he wasn't a regular and 2. If he was sitting shortstacked to start a game, he wasn't an exceptional player. So based on #2, I thought that despite not being in the mood for $400 flips, If I could push him around a bit early and he was worried about the money, than this was a good spot for me. I ended up stacking him off numerous times over 34 hands and I think he put the last of his roll on the table because once the odd-figured last buy in was done, he quit. I think I raised 32 /34 hands and CB only 10 flops or so.... the only times he felted a hand, he was behind and I held. Bottom line, I had the cheat code on and ran like a god.... he was un-lucky as this is an extremely rare occassion for a HU game (but he was an extremely rare opponent).
The next hand is from $2-4 PLO 8/better Hi-Lo split. 6max. I have mentioned this game before, and it's very complex but essentially it's PLOmaha but the pot is split between the high hand and the low hand. Obviously you want to win both sides.....If you can find a good game with inexperienced players, stacks grow in this game faster than any, cause it's so hard to escape with half facing large, pot sized bets. Anyways, here's a nice pot illustrating the importance of going both ways. I ended up scooping this pot as my opponent was trying to escape with an A6 for low and no high. I make the nut low with A3 and have KK for an overpair to the board which held up for high.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660946
I decided on not posting any no limit hands for today as they're all pretty much of the same ilk. Guys play passively vs. aggression and allow cards to come off that they shouldn't. It's taken me a long time to understand how to apply this loose-aggression as prescribed by my poker friends who've had a great deal more success than I have, but if today's any example, when you're running good, or when you get caught, this style pays for itself multiple times over. I got lucky in a bunch of hands today but like I said, passivity allows cards to come off that shouldn't in a no limit game, players get mad and then they play poorly against you AND, perhaps most importantly, there's a ton of fold equity when you're firing so much at pots. It's hard to call big bets with suspect hands vs. an aggressive opponent. It's a wonderful style but very difficult to time perfectly, which I'm nowhere near.
The cards are felting well right now and I really don't have any real coolers or bad beats to show thankfully. I hope it continues for me and friends over the next few weeks. Hope everything's well.
Friday, May 23, 2008
work ethic.
poker's often compared to sports. the reason for this is simple, advertisement. i personally disagree, it's nothing like sports but there are two aspects that if we were to run with the analogy, are of paramount importance to poker success; competitiveness and work ethic. competitiveness, and I've often described myself as un-attractively competitive, is a benefit in poker only if you're enabled to use it in the right way (study hands, search for equity overlays and the expected value of decisions, understand fundamental poker theorems and strategy, etc.) and you're equipped with a strong and internally driven work ethic.
some superusers have god mode permanently switched on, but if you're not one of them, chances are, you're grinding out a very small edge and calculation is simple, you want to increase your earn, increase the amount of hands you apply that edge to.
long story short, i just finished up a day that saw me play almost 6500 no limit hold'em hands and almost 1500 PLO/PLO8 hands. I had finished with a solid win but lost over the NLHE hands. I finished up when my AA got run down by 77 playing 2-4 6max. There was a raise to $12 utg, i made it $47 on the puck, the SB called my 3bet with $280 in his stack.... you know the rest. Thought that'd be a good times to stop today's session. PokerEV has me running pretty cold (-$1000+ in all-in equity) in NLHE but I think I played a lot worse than I should have.
Anyways, a few highlight hands.
This was a sick hand only cause he thought he could 4bet squeeze my squeeze with KQo... i suspected such a strange play so I lost the flip...this is indicative of the extremely aggressive nature of 6max now, 4bet squeezing with KQo.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651895
Um, I ran poorly today, river spike for this dude. I liked the way he played it I guess, what doesn't make sense is from an EV standpoint, if he flatted me with JJ preflop, then wants to get it in on a low board, suggesting he can beat my hand (if he didn't want to flip against AQ or AK) than what does he think I'm laying down here, QQ, KK, AA? He got married to JJ and turned the deceptive play of flatting mid-table into a -EV spot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651897
Ok, big pot for the good guy this time. Top two in a deep stack situation blind vs. blind up against my nut straight... we had been battling a lot and I had been taking weird lines with him so I guess he just let anger takeover and didn't want to pitch two pair. What probably factored in the most in his decision was that I 4 betted him earlier with 88 and flipped for 3/4 stacks so he probably thought my loose play was going to continue. No matter his thought process, this was a nice pot for me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651902
Onto PLO.
I've really changed my style up in PLO. I've tried to think on different lines and switch up some of my tactics...the main one is how I am manipulating pot size... good example here against an aggressive player who took control of the hand preflop, check call the flop, check jam the river. A major leak in the PLO games is aggressive players not knowing when to pull back on the reigns. Here he stacks off with at the most 4 outs.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651906
This is a massive pot. Three way all in for full stacks in 2-4 6max PLO. I think I'm roughly 35% to win this hand... maybe a tad less. Looking back on the hand I don't really like that I got it in preflop but it wasn't really -EV, it was just a pure gamble stack off. What it did do was get me paid off a whole lot as the game progressed, which I guess is well worth taking a break even equity coin flip for $1200.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651919
Lastly, the example how my gamble on the last hand I put up, paid me back. Here, against the same player, I raised preflop, checked the flop, made trips with the top card TEN on the turn, potted it, representing a full house, got called by the same guy, then the board double paired and I made a bluffing continuation bet on the river, hoping he'd be convinced and throw his hand away for the $150 pot sized bet I threw out. I hoped he would fold because three tens are like NEVER good in this spot (if I had to guess, less than 10% of the time) but I was shocked, he called and they shipped it quick, this guy's way. I guess it does pay to flip for stacks sometimes:)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651927
That's it, sorry for all the hand replays but it was a long and action-filled session. Word on the WSOP is that my friend's Derek, Andrew and Wes, whom I'm staying with, all arrive on the 4th approx. and that's when we get the house. I'll be staying in the hotels until then as I'm looking to get there on the 1st. The first event I have my eye on is the $1500 Omaha8/b event. I cashed shallowly in it last year, hope to improve. There's a fantastic mixed event on Wed. June 3rd but it's 10k... way too high for me right now. Guess my work ethic needed to be better during the year.
some superusers have god mode permanently switched on, but if you're not one of them, chances are, you're grinding out a very small edge and calculation is simple, you want to increase your earn, increase the amount of hands you apply that edge to.
long story short, i just finished up a day that saw me play almost 6500 no limit hold'em hands and almost 1500 PLO/PLO8 hands. I had finished with a solid win but lost over the NLHE hands. I finished up when my AA got run down by 77 playing 2-4 6max. There was a raise to $12 utg, i made it $47 on the puck, the SB called my 3bet with $280 in his stack.... you know the rest. Thought that'd be a good times to stop today's session. PokerEV has me running pretty cold (-$1000+ in all-in equity) in NLHE but I think I played a lot worse than I should have.
Anyways, a few highlight hands.
This was a sick hand only cause he thought he could 4bet squeeze my squeeze with KQo... i suspected such a strange play so I lost the flip...this is indicative of the extremely aggressive nature of 6max now, 4bet squeezing with KQo.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651895
Um, I ran poorly today, river spike for this dude. I liked the way he played it I guess, what doesn't make sense is from an EV standpoint, if he flatted me with JJ preflop, then wants to get it in on a low board, suggesting he can beat my hand (if he didn't want to flip against AQ or AK) than what does he think I'm laying down here, QQ, KK, AA? He got married to JJ and turned the deceptive play of flatting mid-table into a -EV spot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651897
Ok, big pot for the good guy this time. Top two in a deep stack situation blind vs. blind up against my nut straight... we had been battling a lot and I had been taking weird lines with him so I guess he just let anger takeover and didn't want to pitch two pair. What probably factored in the most in his decision was that I 4 betted him earlier with 88 and flipped for 3/4 stacks so he probably thought my loose play was going to continue. No matter his thought process, this was a nice pot for me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651902
Onto PLO.
I've really changed my style up in PLO. I've tried to think on different lines and switch up some of my tactics...the main one is how I am manipulating pot size... good example here against an aggressive player who took control of the hand preflop, check call the flop, check jam the river. A major leak in the PLO games is aggressive players not knowing when to pull back on the reigns. Here he stacks off with at the most 4 outs.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651906
This is a massive pot. Three way all in for full stacks in 2-4 6max PLO. I think I'm roughly 35% to win this hand... maybe a tad less. Looking back on the hand I don't really like that I got it in preflop but it wasn't really -EV, it was just a pure gamble stack off. What it did do was get me paid off a whole lot as the game progressed, which I guess is well worth taking a break even equity coin flip for $1200.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651919
Lastly, the example how my gamble on the last hand I put up, paid me back. Here, against the same player, I raised preflop, checked the flop, made trips with the top card TEN on the turn, potted it, representing a full house, got called by the same guy, then the board double paired and I made a bluffing continuation bet on the river, hoping he'd be convinced and throw his hand away for the $150 pot sized bet I threw out. I hoped he would fold because three tens are like NEVER good in this spot (if I had to guess, less than 10% of the time) but I was shocked, he called and they shipped it quick, this guy's way. I guess it does pay to flip for stacks sometimes:)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2651927
That's it, sorry for all the hand replays but it was a long and action-filled session. Word on the WSOP is that my friend's Derek, Andrew and Wes, whom I'm staying with, all arrive on the 4th approx. and that's when we get the house. I'll be staying in the hotels until then as I'm looking to get there on the 1st. The first event I have my eye on is the $1500 Omaha8/b event. I cashed shallowly in it last year, hope to improve. There's a fantastic mixed event on Wed. June 3rd but it's 10k... way too high for me right now. Guess my work ethic needed to be better during the year.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
strange session.
Total was a strange one. I booked a pretty big win at 2-4 no limit + pot limit and 1-2 no limit. I played horrible however and eventually just shut the session down. It's a funny game in that you can play perfect and lose, and then there are days like today when you play horribly and still scoop 'em all. Anyways, I've got a couple of hands that illustrate the session perfectly.
I tried this play, I don't know where this angle shoot came from, I think a discussion with a friend of mine, but in full ring 1-2 NLHE, i usually open for 3.5x the BB, so $7.... I pick up AA and make it $77 to go, trying to make it look like a mis-click and hopefully someone paying attention picks up a hand just strong enough to realize the accident and jam, and i get the 4.5-1 situation. Welcome to the result of my 'ingenuity'. What does it matter if I get it in as a 92% favourite right?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2641539
I can't find the hand but I jammed QQ from the big blind vs. a button opener. Of course this donkey was up against AA, sucked out, scooped a big stack. I really think QQ is a fold to 80% of players in NLHE 6max....at least on this site. Problem was this guys is one of the 20% who is extremely aggressive and could have just as easily shown me AQ, which incidently, was another stack off I had (my AK vs. AQ) tonight, which thankfully, held up.
As far as the PLO session went, I was card dead and stuck in bad spots, couldn't continue with a bunch of hands cause of the betting situation and me being out of position on subsequent streets, anyways, I scooped this sizeable pot and left the PLO gambling for another day.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2641528
As full of it as it sounds, I don't know whether or not I hate losing money more than I hate playing bad.
I tried this play, I don't know where this angle shoot came from, I think a discussion with a friend of mine, but in full ring 1-2 NLHE, i usually open for 3.5x the BB, so $7.... I pick up AA and make it $77 to go, trying to make it look like a mis-click and hopefully someone paying attention picks up a hand just strong enough to realize the accident and jam, and i get the 4.5-1 situation. Welcome to the result of my 'ingenuity'. What does it matter if I get it in as a 92% favourite right?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2641539
I can't find the hand but I jammed QQ from the big blind vs. a button opener. Of course this donkey was up against AA, sucked out, scooped a big stack. I really think QQ is a fold to 80% of players in NLHE 6max....at least on this site. Problem was this guys is one of the 20% who is extremely aggressive and could have just as easily shown me AQ, which incidently, was another stack off I had (my AK vs. AQ) tonight, which thankfully, held up.
As far as the PLO session went, I was card dead and stuck in bad spots, couldn't continue with a bunch of hands cause of the betting situation and me being out of position on subsequent streets, anyways, I scooped this sizeable pot and left the PLO gambling for another day.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2641528
As full of it as it sounds, I don't know whether or not I hate losing money more than I hate playing bad.
Monday, May 19, 2008
to love or hate cardrunners. 2+2 etc..
There's no doubt online poker has changed. I have only been playing consistently for 8 months now but you definitely notice the difference in how the game is being played. It is SO much more aggressive and so much harder to gauge where you're at, more so that it ever has been. I believe it's all of the instruction that is available. People like poker but were sick of loosing so they've turned to CR and the like, to learn how to learn less, or even win. SOOOOO, what do we do know... the styles have become ultra-Loose-Agressive, especially the PLO and NLHE 6max games. It's my belief that any game is beatable, you just need to know how to extract the most against the style of competition you're faced with. It is true however, the more aggressive the opponent is, the harder he is to deal with. I had a good day, booked a win across the board in PLO and NLHE. Here are some interesting hands...again, while looking at them, take in the action, it's so crazy nowadays.
My thought process was simple. Dude's been flatting me in position all day, so I thought I'd let him outplay me. The turn had me tank a bit but this dude's aggression is never indicative of his hand, his bet was too large and his line was that of air, not of value....or so I thought.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630906
To illustrate the aggression at the higher limits (where the problem is even worse... or trend, not problem) here's a hand from a friend of mine. Yes, it actually happened.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630866
Same principle, the new trend of extreme over-aggression in PLO, this time I've got him entirely dead when the stacks get in. We have a history though so I don't look at him like he's too crazy, I'd usually bet the flop and keep the lead, the check made him think he was live.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630927
Anyways.... a few dandys from today, no need to post the coolers. We'll save them for later.
Looks like we finally locked a house up for the Vegas adventure, a few miles from the strip, pool, hot tub, a bunch of great stuff, it does need a Morasse and Pill mind you.
My thought process was simple. Dude's been flatting me in position all day, so I thought I'd let him outplay me. The turn had me tank a bit but this dude's aggression is never indicative of his hand, his bet was too large and his line was that of air, not of value....or so I thought.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630906
To illustrate the aggression at the higher limits (where the problem is even worse... or trend, not problem) here's a hand from a friend of mine. Yes, it actually happened.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630866
Same principle, the new trend of extreme over-aggression in PLO, this time I've got him entirely dead when the stacks get in. We have a history though so I don't look at him like he's too crazy, I'd usually bet the flop and keep the lead, the check made him think he was live.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630927
Anyways.... a few dandys from today, no need to post the coolers. We'll save them for later.
Looks like we finally locked a house up for the Vegas adventure, a few miles from the strip, pool, hot tub, a bunch of great stuff, it does need a Morasse and Pill mind you.
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