Tourney Report: $500k Guaranteed at Commerce

I decided to play a $220 buy-in No Limit Hold'em tournament at Commerce yesterday. First prize was going to be six figures, and I wanted a change-up to the cash games. I've been on a major downswing, and I thought my confidence might benefit from the relatively easy decisions of a tournament. I have a stellar record of cashing in low buy-in casino tournaments, so this seemed like it would be a good investment.

The tourney started at 2pm, so I arrived at 1:20 thinking I'd have plenty of time to register and relax a bit before the action. How wrong I was. They had already sold all the seats (800), and the line for alternates was over 100 players deep. The way the alternates works is, as players bust out you get called in by number. You get the full starting stack, but the blinds go up while you wait to get into the game. So if the structure is fast, you probably want to be very low on the alternate list as your stack will be too weak to really contend by the time you get in. This tournament, however, had a deep-stacked, slow structure with 40 minute levels. I decided it was worth it to play, even at #168 on the alternate list.

I get into the game after about an hour and a half wait. Once I got in, I folded a few hands until I picked up Q-10 offsuit in early position. There were a few other limpers, and we took a flop of A-K-J rainbow. I had flopped the nuts on the very first hand I'd chosen to play. Even thought I only won a modest-sized pot, I felt like it was going to be a good day.

And it was. I grinded it out pretty well for most of the day for a modest cash. Had a major blowup around 1am, and then lost a race in dramatic fashion to exit the tournament. I got it in again against a guy who had me covered with 8-8 vs his A-K offsuit. The flop of 8-4-3 with two clubs had him drawing dead to running clubs or a running 5, 2 for a wheel. But it came down club, club without pairing the board, and I was finished in 98th place out of 3,293 entries. Good for a whopping $600 in prize money, a $380 profit for my 11 hours of toil.

I am going to give it another go this Saturday in the $250,000 Guaranteed, also at Commerce.

Here is a link for the entire L.A. Poker Open series.

A-Q Gets Ivey Again

Pretty brutal. I followed the WSOP Main Event updates, and it seemed like Phil Ivey was really being patient and picking his spots. Finally he ends up getting it in with A-K and Darvin Moon deciding to tango with A-Q. A Queen spikes right away on the flop, and it's bye bye Mr. Greatest Player on Earth.

I win my WSOP Fantasy prop bet with Billy, but it's a pretty joyless victory. My favorite player gets sucked out on to finish 6th ... yet another disappointing Main Event finish for Ivey. Ouch.

Legalize It.

This is probably a good sign for online poker in the United States. The national media is starting to chime in on why internet poker should be regulated rather than banned (Los Angeles Times and Washington Post). Evidently, our government is missing out on $43 billion over ten years in revenue that could be generated by taxing online gambling (only $34 billion if you don't include sports betting, but still). It makes too much sense for them to overturn the UIGEA. The people don't like it, the banks don't like it, and now columnists are stepping out to air these sentiments.

Spread the word, kids. Online poker in the U.S. is drawing live.

Change I Can Believe In

In this scene from D2, the sequel to The Mighty Ducks, Coach Bombay is missing from Team USA's sidelines. The team's tutor Michele McKay is trying her best to fill in for him, and although she has absolutely no idea what she is doing, even she can see the obvious.

McKay: "We look tired out there. We need to ... trade places."

The kids exchange a confused glance.

McKay: "Uh, new players?"

Charlie Conway: "Ohhh. Say 'Change it up.'"

McKay: "Change it up."

Charlie: "Scream it."

McKay: "CHANGE IT UP!!!"



Immediately five players come out of the game and are seamlessly replaced by five fresh players from the bench. The entire exchange takes two seconds.

McKay: "Cool!"
_ _

As you may recall from this post, I was pretty much raised by this film. I grew up in a pretty strict household, so we didn't get to see too many movies that were rated higher than PG. We happened to have D2 on VHS (I know), and since this was one of the few pre-teen movies in the house, my sisters and I watched it over and over and over. Maybe I should make this the second in a series of life lessons gleaned from the Mighty Ducks franchise. Could turn out to be cathartic.

I had been on a sick run playing the $1-2 No Limit at the Hustler Casino of late. But the past two sessions were losing ones for me. The amounts weren't huge (-$45 and -$190) compared to what I've been winning, but after last night I am starting to feel that I need to change it up.

But I don't want to mess with my playing strategy, as that has been wildly successful for the most part. I'm thinking of a more dramatic shift, at least temporarily. I'm talking switching to stud for a little while, because in the last two sessions I could really feel myself starting to get frustrated with grinding for hours and playing really tight, only to get it all in with a big pair against someone who decided to call a big raise with a goofy high-card/low-card hand and flopped a monster.

Of course, there are a lot of suckouts in limit stud as well -- indeed, I daresay there are more. But it is tougher to get stacked on a single hand in that game. You only have to pay off one or two bets to find out if the deck screwed you again. I am hoping it will be a nice change of pace. Ideally I'll win there for a while, and then once I start to get frustrated with that I can switch back to hold'em. Or maybe play some Omaha-8 if I can find a game where the stakes are high enough.

I'll let you guys know how it works out.

Phillip D. Ivey makes the Main Event Final Table

As often has been the case with proposition bets between my blogmate Billy and myself, our World Series of Poker Fantasy League has come right down to the wire. With the card player formerly known as No Home Jerome making the November Nine, it looks like I've got a bit of a sweat.



The way that our league is structured, Ivey needs to take at least third place in order for Billy to pass me in the points and win the league. But if Phil continues to make mistakes like this, my lead might be pretty safe. We will find out in two weeks ...

Setting Limits: The Good & The Bad (Part II)

In my last post, I discussed a few of the positives and negatives about setting limits for how much I lose per session.

How about win limits? This is where a player decides that if they get ahead a certain amount of money, they will be happy and quit for the day. For professional grinders, this is often called "making their daily nut." The beauty of this is that you set your goal, you reach your goal, and then you can go about the rest of your day happy that you have booked a nice win. You also prevent yourself from losing it all back. On the surface, this sounds like a pretty good strategy for a winning player to have.

But it has a few problems. One of them is pretty obvious. If I set a win limit, I am literally limiting the amount that I can win. So if I am in a very profitable game, and playing really well, I'm forcibly removing myself from the ideal poker situation. If my win limit is $300, and I reach it, I never allow myself to have +$1,000 days on those days that a really awful player shows up to unload his paycheck to the poker economy. I would miss out on the really gargantuan scores that we all drool for. And since you never know in poker when you are going to go on a dry spell and have several losing sessions in a row, you want to have some major wins to counteract those rougher patches.

Another problem is when you are just short of the target, but for whatever reason the table conditions are no longer optimal. Sticking with the $300 example, say I get up to $280, then lose a pot by getting outdrawn and am down to $240. Further assume that the donkey that just doubled up off me hits and runs and the remaining players are all tough tricky players with deep stacks. Do I want to continue in the game just to get over that $300 hump? A problem with setting targets is that it can become too much of a focus and get in the way of other important aspects of the game.

I think the top professional players would say that setting win targets/limits is not the best way to go, for the reasons I have described. But there are several lower-level grinders who swear by this method. They put in their time at the table, and if they hit their target early they are free to do whatever they want with the rest of their time. Personally I agree with the top pros that it isn't the ideal thing to do, but honestly I find myself doing it sometimes. Since I don't have an enormous bankroll, it is very important for me to regularly book winning sessions. So for whatever stakes I am playing, generally if I quadruple my buy-in, I start thinking about making an exit. I may play a little longer to see if I can go even further. But if I buy in for $100 and am able to take my stack to $450, I generally will tell myself I will play on but if I get below a stack of $400 I will call it quits. Or something along those lines. However, I leave myself the flexibility to stay in the game if my opponents are playing very poorly and I am playing very well. So I avoid giving back my winnings but also have the option to win more.

Finally, there are time limits. Time limits have a lot in common with win limits. You play up until a certain point and then you stop no matter what. Up, down, doesn't matter. This way you can just focus on playing to the best of your ability, and don't worry so much about winning or losing in individual sessions. You play your career like one long poker session, and if you are a winning player, the results be there in the long run. Like punching a clock. Players do this because they are self-aware enough to realize that they generally start to play worse after a certain length of time passes. They get bored. They get tired. Whatever the reason, they only want to play for so long each time out.

The problem with this method is that it doesn't take into account the conditions of the table on a particular day. Even if I play in the same cardroom, at the same level five days in a row, I might encounter five unique sets of table conditions that may be either good for me or not so good. So instead of playing for four hours on each of those days, it might make more sense for me to play for eight hours against the worst players, and only three hours on the other days.

I am not a huge fan of time limits on poker sessions. (At least not self-imposed ones; many times you have to leave for other reasons. I get that.) I think if you have the flexibility to do so, you should be able to quit at any point and to stay for as long as the game is good and you are playing well. Like it or not, we are not always in the mode of playing our A+ game. So I think it is wise to capitalize on those times when we are.

So, that's my two cents regarding setting limits. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, but as The Wife can attest, it probably wasn't. Nevertheless, I would sum up by saying that I think stop-losses are good, but winning targets and time limits may not be (though I am guilty of setting win targets myself). See ya next time.

Setting Limits: The Good & The Bad (Part I)

For everyone who has ever gambled in his or her life, I'm sure this will sound like a familiar scenario. You are playing your game of choice and having a good time (blackjack, poker, slots, whatever). You get really lucky, go on a great run, and find yourself up quite a bit of money. You briefly consider quitting while you are ahead, but you're having so much fun and the money is flowing so easily that you're not ready to leave just yet.

Then suddenly, things take a turn for the worse. You get really unlucky on a play, and after that it seems like you just can't catch a break. You slowly start to lose the money that you have built up, and maybe you even start making riskier wagers to get back to your former heights. "If I can just get back to where I was before," you tell yourself, "I will call it a day and be happy."

But you can never quite get back there, and eventually you lose it all. As you leave the gambling arena to move on to your next activity, you mentally beat yourself up for not leaving sooner. Even if you had only left with half your winnings, it would have been a great score. "Why did I have to get so greedy?" you silently wonder.

Ever happen to you?

It used to happen to me all the time at the poker table. Back when I was first starting out going to casinos, I hadn't quite learned to control my aggression at the poker table. This resulted in me taking my $50 buy-in and running it up to $250 in a very short period of time, only to lose it all back again with an ill-timed bluff or questionable value bet. Back then, $200 was all the money in the world to me, and even losing the $50 buy-in was often more than I could honestly afford. So the first lesson I had to learn was never to gamble with money that I needed for other things. That is one limit that I don't think any gambler should EVER cross.

But that isn't exactly what this post is about. For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to assume that I have a poker bankroll that is used strictly for poker, and if I lose all of it I will be all right financially. The question I would like to address is, within that bankroll of X # of buy-ins, does it make sense to have a per-session limit to how many buy-ins I allow myself to lose? Is a two or three buy-in stop-loss good for me as a poker player, considering I generally am playing against weaker opponents?

There are other types of limits that a player can set as well. I can set a limit on the amount that I win, and I can set a limit on the length of time I play in a given session. I would like to consider the pros and cons of each type of limit, and share those thoughts with you.

First, loss limits or stop-loss. Now, there are some players that have excellent discipline at the poker table. They are able to recognize when they are playing on tilt, when they are outmatched, or when the table conditions are otherwise unfavorable and they just get up and quit for the day.

I am not one of those players. In the games that I play now, I am often one of the most seasoned players in the game, and I typically have a large edge over my typical opponents. So whenever I get loser, I tend to think that I can still outplay my opponents so I should keep reloading until things begin to turn around. I even have a few huge comeback wins in cash games that could support that exact conclusion. However, there are some times when I really am outclassed in a game and refuse to admit it, or think that I have gotten over a bad beat when I really haven't. And I know that I do not play my best when I'm stuck (no one does), but I will continue to buy more chips over and over until I have no money left in my wallet. So I think for me, a stop-loss is a good thing. If I only take a few buy-ins with me, then I can be forced to go home, cool down, and attack the game again the next time. (But with the ATM's inside the casinos, I have to leave the ATM card at home too! Or at least in the car.)

In the next post, I will address win targets and time limits. Should be tomorrow, unless I get too lazy.

Bet-Sizing with the Nuts

Once in a while, we as poker players find ourselves in the enviable position of holding the stone cold nuts on the river. Ideally in these spots, we like our opponents to also have monster hands that are second best so that we can get paid off handsomely and drag enormous pots. Often, however, our opponents will have much weaker hands than we do, and we must determine what the optimal bet size should be, i.e., how to get them to put in as much money as possible.

Let me use an example from a recent hand that I played. The game is $1-2 No Limit. I have been playing tight on a table with several loose aggressive players. After one such LAG limps in, I raise to $10 in middle position with A-K offsuit. The LAG is my only caller. After the rake is deducted, we are contesting a pot of $18. His stack after the call is $125 and I have him covered.

The flop comes down A-K-2 all different suits. He checks, and I check it back to him. Against this loose player's range, top two pair is a little bit too strong to bet. I feel that I have to let him catch up a little, or maybe induce a bluff from him on the next street. Free card, the pot remains at $18.

The turn is another Ace. I have just made the nut full house and, even better, my opponent quickly bets out $15. Bingo! The way this is going, I rate to win a very nice pot on this hand. However, I elect to just call at this point. The reason? I feel it is STILL a little too early to tip him off to the strength of my hand. I am almost certain that he does not hold an Ace. There really are not too many hands that he could hold that would call a raise from me here. But if I flat call him, he may try and push me out of the pot on the river. I am giving him a chance to make a mistake. The pot is now up to $48.

The river comes -- an irrelevant 4. My opponent doesn't hesitate too long before firing out one more bet of $18. Small for the size of the pot, this actually looks like more a value bet than a bluff. Now I am putting him on a King rather than air. Clearly at this point, last to act on the river, I have to raise his bet. But for how much? He has another $92 behind. The pot, if I call, will stand at $84. Let's run some numbers and see what looks like the best bet. For simplicity's sake, I am only going to examine three possible plays. Min-raising to $36 (2x), value-raising to $64 (about 3.5x), and shoving for his last $92 (about 5x). I will have to make some assumptions, and of course this won't be the best way to play it for every single situation. But I'm curious ... and it is always good to practice thinking about these things after the fact.

Let's start with the min-raise. I will call his raise and add another $18, which will offer him about 5.6-1 pot odds. I estimate that with his range of a king, a pocket pair above 4, or nothing, he will call the min-raise about 40% of the time. So making him put in another $18 40% of the time shows an EV of $7.20.

How about the medium-sized raise? If I make him put in an additional $46 he will be getting about 2.8-1 pot odds. I estimate with that same range, he calls this bet about 20% of the time. So he is putting in an additional $46 20% of the time ... the EV on this raise gets up to $9.20.

And the shove? Now he is looking at 1.9-1 pot odds. I am guessing he only calls this maybe 12% of the time. $92 12% of the time looks like $11.04. Also with pushing all in, since his call frequency is going to be lower, you don't have to show down your cards as often which I like.

However, you can play with the numbers a lot, and get them to fit any bet you like if you manipulate how often you think the opponent will call. There is no way to prove any estimate one way or another. But that isn't the point. The point is to use your best guess, and to always consider all the options available to you. If a player will only call a value-raise slightly more frequently than he will call an all in shove, maybe we should be pushing all in on the river more often. Players sometimes fall into the habit of 3x-ing everything ... and they forget that the beauty of no limit is that you can gun for your opponent's entire stack at any time!

Perfect Poker

Last night I went to the Hustler, and didn't have to wait too long to get into the $1/$2 no limit hold'em game. Once I was seated, I immediately knew that I was a little more dialed in to what was going on than I have been in several months. While I waited for the blinds/button to pass to be dealt in, I was already putting people on hands accurately, profiling my opponents well, and anticipating how they would act on their hands having been seated for only few minutes. Yes, I could feel that, barring some future meltdown or very bad luck, tonight rated to be a big night for me.

My last session had also been at the Hustler, and the results could hardly be more deceiving. I made a few hundred dollars -- (unfortunately) one of my biggest wins in a while. But by making bad reads, lazy decisions, and poorly-timed bluffs, I left a lot of money on the table. The way I was running I easily should have won another $700 Tuesday night, were it not for careless mistakes on my part. I spent Wednesday and Thursday seething at myself and longing for another chance to play the right way.

When I arrived at the game last night, I realized that this was that chance. I was feeling really focused. I was already ahead a little bit for the week so I didn't have to worry too much about losing. This was a great opportunity to prove to myself that I am capable of playing really solid poker when I make a conscious decision to do so.

So I set for myself a goal: try to play four hours of mistake-free poker.

I think I did a pretty good job. I didn't realistically expect to be able to pull it off, but I think having that mindset really helped me to avoid some bad situations. Obviously it is impossible to be completely objective about one's own play, but I turned every single decision I made at the table over and over in my mind both then and since. And I have come up with only three clearly identifiable mistakes from the session.
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#1
Early in the session. On my right I have a good player, an older gentleman who has a habit of flashing his cards when faced with a big decision. And I don't mean that he doesn't protect his cards when he looks at them, where I get to sneak a peek if I really try. It's more like he would show them to me. He would lift them up in front of his face, and since we were on the end of the table (he was the 7 seat, I was the 8), I was the only player that could see his cards. He did this even when I was in the hand! This could potentially be a HUGE advantage over the session.

My mistake? I moved one seat to my left, away from the free information. The reason was that the glare shining on the board was causing me to have to partially stand up to see what the flop, turn and river were. I was worried that standing up to see the cards would open me up to being read by my opponents. They would all be zeroing in on the exact moment that I saw the board, and I didn't want to be giving up that edge. So I moved to the 9 seat so that I could see without straining and avoid facial tells. I might have made the right decision, I don't know. Perhaps not having to strain to see the board (and potentially misreading it) was more profitable. But who knows what I could have made from seeing his cards every time?

(Side note: he ended up moving one chair to his right shortly after I moved, so it probably would have been a moot point. But one could argue that moving away was questionable AT THAT TIME.)

#2
I have A-K suited in the cutoff position, and there are two limps to me (playing six-handed). As it is shaping up to be a family pot and I don't want that, I decide to raise it to $10 (on the larger end of the raising spectrum for that game). It is folded around to the Limper One who, after some thought, calls. Limper Two seems to make a pot odds-driven insta-call.

The flop comes down 7-4-3 all different suits, and it is checked to me. I decide to make a continuation bet of $15, a little more than half the pot. Limper One quickly check-raises to $35, and Limper Two gets out of the way. I think perhaps I can move him off a weak top pair or medium overpair, or maybe he was just making a move on me, so I put him all in without much hesitation. He calls just as rapidly for his remaining $70, and shows me two Queens. Oops. But the turn and river come Ace, King and I win the pot anyway.

Now, I was definitely going to see the turn card. There was no way I was going to fold for $20 when the pot was $75 and I was getting some implied odds as well, not with two overcards and potentially bluffing outs if he had the type of hand that I put him on. So the mistake wasn't that I didn't release my hand at that point. But did I really need to shove? In that game, you honestly don't see too many check-raise bluffs. I really should have discounted the possibility that my hand might be good. There just wasn't all that much chance of A-K beating him. A call there would have given me a lot more flexibility.

#3
I limp in the cutoff with pocket 3's. It is a seven-handed family pot. The flop comes A-A-3 and it is checked to me. Family pot, so someone must have an ace, right? I bet out $8, the button (a very very tight player) calls me, as does a player in early position. Nice.

The turn is a Q, not the best card in the deck. But when you have 3's full, you never know when a card is going to fill your opponents up (if they don't have a full house already). Since I didn't see any shift in my two opponents that would make me think they improved, I wanted to stay aggressive. After a check, I bet out $18 and both players quickly called.

The tight player on the button seemed very agitated however. I know that agitation. It's the feeling that you HAVE TO call down because you have trips, but your kicker is not strong at all. You just hope that they will check the next street so you can save some money.

The river was an 8. The first player to act was all in by calling the turn, and the tight button player had $65 left. For some reason I can't fathom, I decide to bet out $40 rather than putting him all in. I cannot justify this bet in any way. In my opinion, it was the worst mistake I made the whole night. Sure, he called it and I won a nice pot by firing three bullets. But I knew he had trip aces, I knew he couldn't fold it, I knew he would check if I checked ... I had him covered, so that should be a pretty automatic shove. Ugh.

_ _

Overall though, the session went well. I don't know why this seems like such a novel concept to me. Don't make mistakes. Duh, right? But for some reason, I often show up to a game and just play. I may tell myself "Okay, let's play tight today" or "Let's really mix it up and keep the pressure on." But outside of tournaments, I've never really said "Let's just try to make the right play on every single street of every single hand." It's obvious, but I should force myself to play this way EVERY time. And the results should fall into place.

Cash Game Report, Part II

More hands from the $2/$5 No Limit at MGM Grand ...
_ _

10x-9x, Stack $320
"Barney" raises to $25 UTG. I don't know why I call him that ... although with his build and blond hair there could be a Barney Rubble thing going on there. Apparently he and Greeny are from the same home casino in Canada, and play together often but are NOT friends. More like familiar acquaintances that kid each other a lot ... or so Barney informed me. Anyway, two people call including Greeny in the small blind, and I call as well in the big. The flop is 10-8-5 all different suits. Small blind checks, I check, Barney (yet another young gun LAG at this table) cbets $45. One fold, the Greeny calls, and I check-raise to $190. Barney makes an exasperated fold, and Greeny flashes a 10 and then folds. Hmm, maybe I wasn't good there, lol. Oops. Barney claims pocket 9's ... I don't show, but drag the pot. Stack up to $485 ... rolling along now.

Ad-Kd, Stack $660
Have won some nice pots without showdowns. Similar in action to this hand, sort of. On the hand immediately prior, I had raised preflop, then cbet $100 on an ace-high flop with pocket Jacks to take it down. On this hand, after Barney and Greeny both limp, I raise to $40 in the big blind. They both call. The flop is A-4-3 rainbow. I say aloud "Same bet," meaning the same continuation bet as in the previous hand of $100. But the dealer doesn't take it that way. He says "Forty dollars," and Barney immediately sets out $40 to call. When I explain that I meant $100, they call the floor over because they think Same Bet should mean the same as the previous street. Fair enough. The floorman sides with the dealer and my opponents, and they both call the $40 bet. The turn is a Jack. I bet out $150 and they both fold. They comment that had I bet $100 on the flop, they would not have called ... so the mistake earned me $80 extra. Woohoo!

9x-9x, Stack $900
By now, Fedora is long gone, and his absence has probably played a role in my chipping up so nicely. Fewer good players to contest my pots. But there has been another stack of $2,000 sitting at my table and not seeing much action. It belongs to a young local pro who has been in and out of the game (mostly out) since I sat down. He wasn't involved in the current hand so much as he was in the post mortem analysis.

There are two limpers, I raise to $40 on the button, and only one of the limpers calls -- Skinny. The flop is 10c-10s-6c. Check-check. The turn is the 4d. Check-check. The river is the 9h. Skinny bets out $45, and I pretend to tank before raising to $145. He folds instantly. The pro asked what I had, and I answer him truthfully. He frowns, and then asks why I didn't bet the flop. While it's normally not my policy to discuss strategy with my more dangerous opponents, I guess being up $500 is making me feel a little cocky. I explain to him reasoning. I don't see too many hands that call my flop bet, other than maybe a worse pocket pair or a club draw. But still, on that flop, I run the risk of getting check-raised out of the pot by a weaker hand. I have a pretty good idea of where I'm at, so why not wait to see if bad cards come, or wait until he tries to take a stab at it. If bad cards come, I can call down if my read says I still might be good. And if good cards come, I can raise his bluff and maybe make more money. It's both playing it small in case I get beat, and inducing bluffs for when my hand holds up. Do you all, my readers, agree? Discuss.

Ah-Jc, Stack $1,100
Skinny raises to $25 in the hijack. Greeny folds, and I decide I am going to try and use my rock solid tight image and make a move here. I re-raise him to $80. It is folded around to him, and he calls pretty quickly. The flop is 6-6-4. We both check. The turn is an 8. We check. River King, and we also check. He shows me A-J of spades! He smiles when he sees we are chopping, and says "I just wanted to beat you with A-J of spades like you did to me earlier." (On an earlier hand, we had gotten the money in on the flop, me having a flush draw. I hit the nut flush on the turn ... and he never showed what he had on that one.)

This hand really had me thinking, though. I couldn't figure out if Skinny somehow thought his hand was good preflop, if he really just wanted to beat me with A-J, or what. I did not consider A-J to be in my re-raising range. In fact, the only other time I had re-popped preflop was with the pocket 2's very early on in the session. He might have been remembering that hand, but I had really really tightened up since that crazy beginning where I was all in every two seconds, it seemed. Maybe he hadn't noticed that tightening up. And maybe since I had won a few pots without a showdown, he just decided to play with me. I don't know ... I just can't figure out what he thought A-J would be able to beat, out of position after the flop. To a rare three-bet. Couldn't figure out his reasoning ... he was either just a bad player (he did call down with J-10 earlier) or had a great read on me. Don't know which.
_ _

Anyway, I finished that session +$850 after about five hours of play. It was pretty sweet to swim with the sharks and not get hurt! Can't wait to go back ...

Cash Game Report, Part I

So, how did I do in the cash games??? Did I make my money back?

The answer is, most of it. I went on a +$1,600 cash game tear to start off, then backslid a bit. This was annoying, as it was such a great feeling to have covered my tournament buy-in. Oh well. But I made most of it back, to end the trip +$1,250 in the cash games. This was my biggest cash game success in Vegas ever, and definitely a solid three-day run. Paired with the +$500 or so that I made on my honeymoon (my previous Vegas record), I am starting to feel pretty confident about poker there, provided I have an adequate bankroll.

Anyway, I don't want to get into too many of the overall ups and downs. I thought I would rather just tear into some hand analyses ... I took really solid notes on the plane home. Playing at Planet Hollywood was pretty easy -- I could run over the tables there no problem. But when I decided to play the $2/$5 No Limit at MGM Grand, I wandered into Young Gun city. Hoodies and iPods everywhere, and hardly a tourist in sight. So these hands were against more aggressive players, and required more trickeration. I hope that makes them more enjoyable to read.

_ _


9s-8s, Stack $500
I just sit down at the table, and buy-in for the max. I was on a downswing at the $1/$2 tables, and I was leaving first thing in the morning. So I moved up in stakes to take one last shot to make my money back. I don't have any reads on the table so far. There are two limps, I raise on the button to $30. The blinds fold, and one limper ("Skinny Guy") calls. Flop is K-x-x all different suits. He checks, I continuation bet $55, and he calls. The turn is a Q, making the board a badugi. We both check, and I am pretty sure he has nothing, but that his nothing has to be better than my nothing. I am planning to bluff the river as it is my only chance to win the pot, but when it comes a 9, Skinny beats me to it. He bets out $100, and I snap-call expecting my pair to be good. But he rolls over J-10 for the stone-cold nuts. I was right that he floated me out of position on the flop. But he got there. I guess I saved money by not betting the turn ... he would have called with an open-ender if he called with jack-high. I guess I could have folded the river ... but this was one of the few times in a hold'em game that I was surprised to see my opponents cards. Just wow. How could he have J-10? Oh well, down to $315.

Kd-7d, Stack $315
A few hands later, I am in the big blind. There are four limpers to me including the small blind, and I check. The flop is the 10d-7c-4d. Pair and a flush draw, I am figuring out how to get my stack in. But the small blind ("Greeny" for his green shirt) makes the decision a little easier by open-shoving for $170. I am trying to decide between calling and re-shoving. Do I want more people in to get better odds on the flush draw, or do I push them out and hope that my pair of 7s might be good against the small blind, who could be on a draw himself (5-6, 8-9, another flush draw)? I still am not sure about this, and am open to suggestions. There is a good chance the others are folding anyway, for that large a bet. Anyway, I decide to shove, but Greeny's Qx-10x holds up. Down to $145 now, and my comeback is not looking too strong right now. At this loose-aggressive of a table, $145 is nothing.

2d-2c, Stack $143
I am in the cutoff, a few hands later. A guy in a fedora raises from early-mid position to $40, and gets two calls from guys who are loose-passive preflop, then tight-aggressive post. (Fedora is a really good player, sitting on a stack of over $2,000. He is one of few players I have sat down with that I will admit is better than me at cash no limit hold'em. I've been told by another player at the table that Fedora is connected to the German mob. I didn't even know there was a German mob, but the two sleeveless goons sweating Fedora's action make me a believer real quick. Fedora seems like a pretty nice guy though [more on that in a minute].)

I am thinking this might be a decent spot for a squeeze play. I know the two cold-callers are weak. And Fedora might not want to play out of position, but even if he calls, my deuces might have a race against him with some nice dead money in the pot. I ship my stack, and it's folded back around to Fedora, who pushes over the top of me. Uh-oh. The two callers fold as predicted, and Fedora rolls over pocket Jacks. Damn it. The flop comes all diamonds however, and since Fedora doesn't have a diamond, I actually have some life. I make the flush on the turn, woohoo! But the river comes ... the trey of diamonds!! The five diamonds on the board cover my deuce of diamonds, so we chop the pot. Fedora takes it really well for a nearly $200 swing. For me, I'm a bit bummed at the way the cards fell, giving me hope, then taking it away. What a roller-coaster. But I also feel pretty lucky to have even chopped. Stack at $186.

Kx-9x, Stack $130
Again in the cutoff, a couple rounds later. I have lost chips in small pots by calling small raises preflop and missing. Here, Fedora limps in early position, and it is folded to me. I raise to $20, and only Fedora calls. The flop is A-9-x. Fedora checks. I don't believe he has an ace in his hand, but with my short stack, I'm going to play this as cautiously as possible until I have more information. Then turn is an 8. Fedora bets out $35, and I go into the tank. Maybe he does have a weak ace. Can he be pushed off, if so? Is he trapping here? I don't think so ... maybe I should just go for it. Fedora sees how intently I'm studying him, and he makes it easy for me. He cuts out a stack of chips to cover my potential shove and gives me a look that says "Save your money. I am calling whatever you bet." I believe him. I muck my hand, and he flashes me pocket rockets. The nuts. Wow, he played that tricky ... no way I could have put him on that. He very likely could have had the last of my chips, but decided to let me get away from it. Not a friend of his or anything, and we may never see one another again. Like I said, really nice guy.

5x-5x, Stack $105
Good thing that guy left me with some chips. After four limps, I limp in the small blind. Big blind checks. The flop comes 8-7-7 with a heart flush draw, and shit gets crazy. I lead out for $20, then the big blind (a big time LAG) raises to $60. A middle position player admits to the table they are on a straight draw, and shoves for $140. I tank for a minute, then pray they are both on draws and put my stack in. The big blind calls, and I was right. The BB is on a heart draw and the other dude has 6-9. Sweet, I got two of his outs. The turn is a miss, but the river is a heart! I cringe for a second, until I realize that it's the 5 of hearts, giving me a full boat! I drag a pot of $330 and finally I can play poker again.

Fantasy Update

My, how things have turned! Billy got off to an insanely hot start with Phil Ivey winning two bracelets and Daniel making two final tables as well. He was running away with it early on, as all I had to show for my team were a bunch of near-misses and heartbreaks. If we had bet instead on cashes without final tabling, I would already have won handily.

But I made a YOOGE comeback. After being down some 40-odd points, I have roared back to open up a nine-point advantage, thanks to Erik Seidel, Roland de Wolfe (who won his first bracelet and completed the so-called 'Triple Crown of Poker"), and Barry Greenstein all making two final tables each. J.C. Tran ran over his final table on his way to a bracelet as well, and David Williams, Max Pescatori, and Matt Glantz all chipped in.

Now I just have to fade the Main Event and I'm home free. But even though the Main Event is such a ridiculous beast that it's conceivable that no name pro will ever win it again, with the way I run in prop bets against Billy, I won't feel safe until he is drawing completely dead.

(I did allow myself a bit of a gloat, however: I offered to accept $19.50 to let him out of our $20.00 bet early. He politely declined.)

Bad beats:

-Andy Bloch is dead to me. As are ElkY (Grospellier) and Hellmuth, my top two picks.

-How did neither of us pick John Juanda?? He has gone deep in more than his fair share of tourneys this year.

-Where the hell did Jeff Lisandro come from????? Three bracelets, in three different Stud variants? Are you kidding me?? (He actually won the tourney I played in ...)

-Billy made a terrible move by suggesting we change the league from 10 players to 15. David Williams, Roland de Wolfe, and Matt Glantz are the only reasons I'm alive in this thing ... all he's gotten out of it are a few sparing points from Shannon Shorr and that single Ted Forrest point. Ouch.

Lessons from the WSOP

This post is kind of a carry-over from the last one, but with less narrative and more big picture stuff.

First, a little generality I have found to be true about Stud players. In my experience, you can always tell the great Stud players because it seems like they are always making full houses, and it always seems like their weaker two pair hands are still good. That's because these players have really great memories and awareness of the cards that are out. They seem to show down more boats because they only draw to live hands. For instance, if they make a 'surprise' pair on 5th street, they know whether to play it aggressively or passively based on the cards other players have previously folded. They remember, and so they have a better sense than the average player of how likely they are to fill up.

The reason they win with hands like 7's and 5's is along similar lines. They can tell how likely their opponents are to have better hands than them based on the cards that are out. So not only are the great players on the lookout for cards that can help their hands, they are also evaluating how likely their opponents are to have improve their hands as well. Quite the feat.

Well, one of the super-memory guys was the new player on my left. I recognize his face from previous WSOP footage, but I have no idea what his name is. Same goes for a few other people at my table. Can't quite place them.

As I had hoped when I first considered playing this tourney, there were several players who obviously were good overall poker players, but who were not all that experienced in Stud hi-only. There were definitely some dabblers at my table. I used that to my advantage in the early going, as it became clear that these players probably wouldn't last as long, and as the tournament wore on, this dead money would become scarcer and scarcer (just like any tournament).

Like I said in a previous post, one of the things that struck me the most was being one of the better players to start. I had not expected to be in that position at all. I had expected to play tight, wait for good cards and hope that they help up in the shark tank. But when I saw one older gent who is completely clueless, one guy who is the ultimate calling station, another guy constantly drawing to dead hands ... instincts just take over. When the table is playing so passively, I can't help but to attack more often. So that's what I did.

Having said all that, you still have to run well to go far in a tournament. I learned that I am good enough to play in the game, by virtue of lasting as long as I did. I wasn't completely dead money -- were it not for a bad beat (Kings Up improving to beat my Aces Up) I would have been one of the chip leaders. I busted in the middle of the tourney, after all. But at the end of the day, I still lost my $1,500 just like the guy who busted out first. No last longer bets going. It just meant a stay of execution for me. As I walked out, I couldn't help thinking about what if I had put the money towards cash games.

I think I chose the event wisely. There were not as many experts in this game as in, say, a no limit hold'em donkament, just as I had hoped. Also, I was right about the scheduling. With the big names over in the Amazon Room playing more prestigious events, I probably had a better shot at making the money in a WSOP tourney.

There are no events left to play this year. But I will be back for sure next year. And I will make sure that next time, a single tourney isn't such a large hit to my bankroll. Mark my words.

Where you been, J?

Wow, so much to report, and I haven't gotten around to it until now. It's pretty sad really. I am a poker blogger, I decide to play in the World Series of Poker for the first time ever, and it takes me nearly a month to write about the experience! Pathetic!

Well, where to begin? The flight into McCarran was choppy as usual, but, other than that, uneventful. I played just over an hour of $1/$2 No Limit at Planet Hollywood before hopping over to the Rio to register for the tournament. +$285. I pretty much decided then and there that I wasn't going to play any satellites. I would just buy into the event, and play cash games to earn as much of my buy-in back as possible.

At about 10:30 The Wife and I took the free shuttle to the Rio. I noticed that the tokes to the shuttle driver were not as forthcoming as they had been in the 2008 WSOP. People just sailed on by. Sign of the economic times, I suppose, but I made sure to take care of them on each trip. A buck for shuttle service across the freeway isn't too unreasonable, in my book.

It turns out that you have to get a (free) Harrah's playing card before you can register for any tourney, but that actually turned out to be not bad at all. Because the buy-in was so large, it meant I got hooked up with some nice meal comps and such at Harrah's-owned establishments like Paris and Bally's. Pretty cool. Once that was done, it was on to the tournament cashier's kiosk to make the buy-in. It was anti-climactic, really. I had thought that plunking down fifteen $100 bills to gamble would feel more ominous than it did, but it was more-or-less like any other tournament I've ever played. You pay the money, you get a seat card and a meal comp, end of story. Still, as I walked away, I couldn't help feeling a little giddy. It was official, and there was no turning back now. In a few short hours, I would be playing in the one and only World Series of Poker.

As we made our way back to the strip, however, I could feel that airy giddiness turning into a major headache. The Wife and I grabbed lunch at Paris, where a smoking-hot hostess gave us a really great seat and was generally very nice to us. Of course, as a result, I had to fade all kinds of annoying accusations of checking out said hostess, which did not help my budding headache one bit. But the food was good, and I decided a nap would be a great final preparation for my first step onto the big stage.

When I woke up around 4, the headache was REALLY POUNDING. I was also ridiculously dehydrated. I popped 800mg of ibuprofen and gulped down a liter of water on my way back to the Rio. By the time I got to my seat in the Brasilia Room at 4:30, I felt fantastic. I was alert, but calm. No pain anywhere in my body, I was rarin' to go.

But it was early. I didn't even have anyone at my table to talk to yet. I decided to wander over to the Amazon Room to see what big names were playing. It turned out that Huck Seed and Todd Brunson were final tabling a mixed event, while Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu were seated close to one another and going deep into a limit hold'em event. The $5K pot limit Omaha event nearby was also chock full of big names ... a quick sweep showed me Victor Ramdin, David Pham, Humberto Brenes ... the list goes on. I happened to stand next to Michael DeMichele briefly, and I let him know that he was on my fantasy team and that I was rooting for him to do well this year. He seemed to be flattered, but I don't think my words really helped him much. After seeing him make strong showings in early events (cashing if not final tabling), he has been M.I.A. in the latter half of the WSOP. Was my speech too much pressure? Or was he just low on funds after buying into the $40K event? Quien sabe?

5 o'clock eventually rolled around, and it was a quick dash back to the Brasilia Room, Table 247. I honestly don't remember too much about specific hands, at least not in great detail. It is more or less a blur, but I do have these general impressions to share:

- The game played very much like my books describe Stud cash games. Specifically, the players were generally much tighter than I am used to seeing. Makes sense, as most of the examples in the books are $15/$30 bet limits at the minimum. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the books prepared me very well for this tournament, even more so than they had for the Stud cash games I have played in my career. For instance, certain isolation plays and bluffs that simply don't work at the $4/$8 tables at Commerce were a gold mine here;
- I was one of the two strongest players at my starting table of eight. The rest were competent, save for one total idiot. But these competent players all had very exploitable tendencies that I picked up on pretty quickly. For such a high buy-in, this was not a shark tank by any stretch of the imagination. Had it been a higher-stakes cash game, I would have made a boatload in short order;
- Much like tournament hold'em, the value in playing draws drops off significantly. You don't see nearly as many straights and flushes shown down as you might in loose cash games; there were a lot more hands that were won by a single pair or two pair;
- The one-hour levels and the deep stacks made for a lot of play, and as such there was no real need to gamble early on. It also provided a great feeling-out period for the table. I had never played in a tournament with levels so lengthy before, so I was more used to just having to play my cards because the blinds go up so quickly.

Early on, I played really aggressively and I read every situation perfectly. Nevertheless, I got dangerously short-stacked very early when my strong starting hands got drawn out on. But the structure allowed me to survive those hits and make a huge comeback to become chip leader at my table. I kept with the good reads, and had a good run of cards to be solidly above the average by the dinner break. I even had the satisfaction of knocking out a couple players. :)

After dinner, however, things did not go so well. We got two new players, who were both as aggressive as I am -- one on my left and one on my right. The new guy on my right was constantly stealing pots before I could do so (disrupting my earlier mojo). And the new guy on my left was more difficult to steal from than his predecessor had been. So it was much tougher for me to put pressure on the table like I had been doing throughout most of the tourney.

One of them was actually more aggressive than me, as hard as that may be to believe. It took me a few hands to figure it out, but he was four-betting me with nothing on several occasions. This was a shock to me, as I am not at all used to players trying to run over me ... it's typically the other way around. On one hand in particular, he four-bet me on 3rd street, four-bet me on 4th, then called every single bet on every street including the river. When he called me at the end, I shrugged a little because I thought there was no way my unimproved split kings were good. When he didn't turn his cards over, I eventually showed my single pair, and he mucked angrily. He thought it was a slowroll! We had a bit of a heated discussion after that, as I tried to calmly explain to him why I thought my hand could not possibly be good once he called down after being so aggressive early on and I was representing a pair of kings the whole way. He just kept repeating that if I shrug like that, it means I don't have anything. Argh, whatever. Ship the chips.

The long and short of it was that I lasted my way into the sixth level, where I was sadly shown the exit. I made Aces and 8's on 4th street (how fitting), and got into a betting and raising war with the new, aggressive player on my left. He ending up making Kings full on that hand after starting with Kings up on 4th. Bad beat. That hand crippled me, and on the next I got it all in with three diamonds on 3rd street. I eventually made Jacks up, but my foe made a straight to knock me out. 209th out of 359 runners. D'oh.

More to come.

I'm Coke'd Up

I.e., full of Coke Zero and Twix bars.

Through certain scientific processes, I have determined that 5CZ + 3TwB => Unholy Crapola. It also means jitters like a mofo. I pulled yet another all-nighter last night, and for once it is actually kicking my ass. I have heard most human beings suffer side effects from lack of sleep ... but I don't recall ever having experienced them. Maybe I'm just getting older and losing my extra-terrestrial powers.

On the positive side of things, I am as pumped as ever to play the WSOP. I have decided to do it, once and for all. I think. At least right now I see myself as just a step away from being king of the poker world. I'm about to take Las Vegas by storm. People will be calling me the next Phil Ivey within 72 hours.

They said there would be hallucinations ... delusions of grandeur ...

So where does that leave us? Obviously if I'm making millions every day playing cards, I'll have little to no time to write down my random thoughts. The blog will have to become history, unless Billy decides to take it up again. This could be farewell, dear lone reader!

Deep breath, and ... back to reality. I am heading home to get some much needed sleep. I am friggin' ripe right now ... haven't showered or shaven in three days. It's time to pack my bags, get some TLC from The Wife (backdoor outs of that happening ... enjoy the double entendre, hey-o!), and ship out to the City of Shattered Dreams. It's Las Vegas, bitch! I can't wait!

Miscalculation

I had a bit of a setback on Wednesday night. Went and played some cash stud during offpeak hours (weeknights -EV) and got killed. I was doing a pretty good job of staying even, hanging with the tough grinders there at Commerce. But then I lost a big pot. Basically an idiot with a huge beard cold-called a 3bet on 5th street with a gutshot draw, even though the three betters had all just paired their door cards. I was 3betting my trip 7s against 8's showing and 2's showing, because 8's were dead. Beardo needed a 7 for his straight and stayed in even though I was SCREAMING that I had trip 7's. On the next street, the idiot bricked, the 2's caught my fourth 7, and I caught crap. Beardo grimaced and said that he needed a 7, and then mucked on 6th street. I ended up losing a big pot to a 2's full boat. Steamboat in my case. Ugh. Uncle Tilty showed up and then it was a slow bleed to death from that point on. I should know better than to go to Commerce on a weeknight ... game selection, ai ya.

So I wasn't sure where that left me. My goal of playing Wednesday night was to get myself off the fence and give myself that final shot of confidence (and extra cash) I needed to play in the WSOP. But losing made me more confused than ever. I have been telling more and more people that I'm playing the tourney, in an attempt to shame myself into playing. "You can't back out now, J ... then you'll have to tell everyone that you wussed out." I think it is probably going to work.

Phil Ivey (my favorite poker player other than myself ... awww screw it, I got a man-crush on this brotha) won his 6th bracelet last night after going three WSOP without winning one. Rumor has it that he tipped his entire winnings (over $96k for first place) to the dealer staff, presumably because he made so much money on sidebets. I know he has a standing bet with Daniel Negreanu that they have to pay each other $200k if one of them wins a bracelet. And Phil obviously had several other specific bets with various individuals ... he won't talk about the bets other than to acknowledge their existence. So it's all speculation, but I've heard he might have made as much as $10M in bracelet prop bets. Honestly, I would not put it past him. Ballin' ...


Anyway, I'm happy for Phil, but this is pretty devastating for the fantasy league wager with Billy. I was riding high Wednesday night when I found out Max Pescatori took 4th place in the $10k Stud, good for 8.5 points. But then Ivey snags a bracelet for 20 points, bringing the tally to Billy 21, Jamin 8.5. (Forrest earned Billy a point for taking ninth in the $40k event). And Daniel is currently chip-leading the $10k Mixed Championship through Day 1. This fantasy league could be a rout in the making ...

My new tentative plan is to try and satellite into the event. If it hadn't been for recent things that had come up financially (in addition to a downswing in cash games) I would be playing the event no question. But as it stands, I have about $2,300 total to gamble/eat/party with. That is cutting it somewhat close if I drop $1,500 on the tourney ... definitely a short roll for a three-day trip. The satellites are supposed to be really soft ... I'm confident I can win the entry. But it is sort of a matter of will I have enough time. I am arriving the day of. So chances are I'll have to play perhaps two satellites, AND register for the tourney. And sometimes the satellites have waits. I have pretty much given up on the napping idea. I think I will just have to hit the ground running.

Anyway, I know this post was a bit of a ramble ... not a literary achievement by any stretch of the imag. But, I gtg. Check out the Twitter update feed on the sidebar while I"m gone ------>

Peace!

Slim to None

This is approximately what I look like when I'm dressed for work everyday.



Not much to look at, but I guess some women do still go for the whole business suit thing. I would have to admit that I dress a lot better than the salary I make would lead you to expect. Nevertheless, I was more than a little surprised this morning when, as I headed down the elevator with The Wife, a mildly chesty, 30-something blonde saunters in and begins to openly flirt with me. Completely disregards that I'm with The Wife. Maybe this one just has a thing for donkeys and can't help herself ... hmmmm.

But I quickly realize that this is a lose-lose situation for me. I am drawing completely dead here.

I'm happily married, so there is absolutely no chance of anything happening with the blonde. But of course The Wife is still going to make sure I hear about this little encounter ... probably for a long time to come. So even though the circumstances were completely beyond my control, and I did nothing wrong whatsoever, I am still going to be punished somehow. I didn't even get my money's worth by flirting back with the chick.

I realized that my Vegas plans are a bit of a lose-lose as well. If I play the tournament, and (likely) bust out, I may kick myself for not just playing cash games or smaller tournaments. However, if I DO play cash games and still get reamed, then I'll really kick myself for not taking a shot in the tourney. Once again, it's like if I'm going to lose I might as well get my money's worth.

Was that too much of a stretch? Did my analogy hold water? If not, no big deal. I really just wanted to try and use that donkey picture somehow ... it's just so appropriate.

20/40 Club?

Been reading online today about Stud hi cash games in Vegas. Assuming this game isn't defunct, it looks like there is a regular 20/40 that runs in the Bellagio. I also found out that it is considered by some to be a relatively soft seat ... and I've always told myself I'd play at Bellagio next time, next time. But now I see this, and for once I can afford the buy-ins. Hmmm. Intriguing.

Of course, to say that me playing 20/40 limit poker would be taking a shot is a GINORMOUS understatement. I would be shooting at the moon. I have never played higher than 4/8 before. This would be a huge jump for me. I'd have to be crazy to even consider it.

Almost as crazy as playing in a $1,500 WSOP event ...

Realistically, my chances of not going broke are probably a lot better playing 20/40 stud for an $800 buy-in than a $1,500 buy-in tournament. The reasons are several. One, I have much more experience playing stud cash games than stud tourneys. Two, the buy-in itself is a lot less ($200 is the minimum buy for 20/40). Three, while four winners can feed off of just two big losers in a cash game, only about 10% of the field gets paid in your typical multi-table tournament.

However, the upside of a tournament is of course MUCH larger than that of a cash game. If you happen to play well and catch good cards in a big tourney, you are looking at a terrific payday. Cash games tend to be more of a grind ... steady profit leading to a larger and larger bankroll over time. A multi-table tourney is like that speculative stock that has maybe a one percent chance of going through the roof, but mostly will either lose or break even. For a great player, cash games are like the bonds that may take the small loss here and there, but generally pay steady dividends over time.

So what kind of investor will I be feeling like this weekend?

I am more than a little tempted to forego Event #16 and put that $1,500 strictly towards cash games. I've heard advice along those lines come from more than one corner. However, when I tell those same guys that I mostly just want to fulfill my dreams of playing in the big time, they all give me this knowing, wistful smile ... and tell me they understand completely.

I kind of wish I hadn't told so many people that I was playing the WSOP now ... at this point I would feel rather sheepish if I backed out. But maybe it's just the wiser move. A better investment. Maybe I'm just getting nervous because the date is approaching and I feel under-prepared. Maybe I am just looking for an excuse to run back to the security blanket. I don't know what I'm going to decide to do four days from now ... I really don't.

WSOP Fantasy League

This is my first time trying this. It was kind of a last-minute deal ... I asked Billy the day before Event #2** if he was interested in gambling, and of course he said yes. So just like that, we've got ourselves a heads-up fantasy league.

Each of us made a prioritized list of players we would choose, and then we flipped a coin to see whose list would kick off the draft. The way I run in coinflip situations, it should be no surprise that Billy was able to select Phil Ivey as the number one overall draft pick. But I was okay with that, because my first choice was also a Phil -- this one of the Hellmuth variety. In fact, I was able to get my first eight picks through no problem. Our complete lists are below ...

Jamin - Urteamcantspellpokr

Phil Hellmuth, Jr.
Bertrand Grospellier
Erik Seidel
Max Pescatori
Kathy Liebert
Nenad Medic
Andy Bloch
Shaun Deeb
Barry Greenstein
J.C. Tran
Matt Glantz
Mike Matusow
Roland De Wolfe
Michael DeMichele
David Williams


Billy - Guillermo de los Gringos

Phil Ivey
David Benyamine
Chris Ferguson
Daniel Negreanu
Tom Schneider
Erik Lindgren
John Phan
Scotty Nguyen
Michael Mizrachi
Allen Cunningham
David Tran
Ted Forrest
Marcel Luske
Shannon Shorr
Robert Mizrachi

Notable Cockblocks: I was barely able to pick up Andy Bloch ahead of Billy. I think it was a real coup to be able to get him so late in the draft (14th overall pick). The guy has a really great tournament record ... to wit, two WPT final tables and twenty WSOP cashes, including finishing runner-up to Chip Reese in the inaugural $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event over one of the toughest fields ever assembled. No bracelets yet, but in our league you get points for all final table finishes. So I think he'll turn out to be a solid earner.

Of course, there is another side to this. I really wanted Ted Forrest, but somehow I let him slip to 23rd overall!! The guy has five bracelets, and twenty-one WSOP cashes. He's also won two WPT titles on five final tables. This was a major mistake on my part, which has already come back to bite me in the ass. Through three completed events, Ted Forrest is so far the only drafted player to earn any points (by taking 9th place at the $40,000 buy-in WSOP 40th Anniversary Special). Grrrr, the Suicide King! The one that got away!


**We started counting at Event #2, because Event #1 was the Casino Employees tournament. I don't think either of us were planning to draft Andrew Cohen ... whoever he is.

"Mymymy Poker Face, My PoPoker Face"

"Who is this Lady Gaga I've been hearing so much about?" ~Ben "Superdome" Peters

"First prize at the World Series of Poker is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don't know. But I'm gonna find out." ~Mike McDermott, Rounders
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The $1,500 Stud tournament last year paid exactly $135,753 for first place. I've been secretly plotting what I'll do if I win that amount. Four C-class Mercedes, 675 Nintendo Wii's, and 271,506 McDonald's apple pies are all in the running.

After taxes, it's not really quit-your-job-and-turn-poker-pro money. But damn it, it's close. My workload lately has just been bananas, so I would have to think looooong and hard about walking away if I made a big score. Of course, such speculation is the definition of counting a chicken before it hatches. In actuality, I don't really think so highly of my stud game to expect to take down a major tournament against the pros on my very first try.

But I can dream.

At work, however, I have to keep up appearances and pretend that I have some interest in the tasks that I'm performing. In reality, I'm just going through the motions for a few more days until I hit the desert. My heart is in Vegas. Honestly, that's probably where the money would go if I did go deep in Event #16. The Wife and I are seriously considering buying a house out there. The prices of homes are ridiculously low in that area right now, especially compared to West Los Angeles, where we live. Buying property out there would definitely be on the table if I won. It can't really get much cheaper than it is now.

So at my job lately, it's all I can do to appear like I give a crap. It's my poker facade. I'm sure once I've gone broke and return to town with my tail between my legs, things will go back to normal. Yes, soon enough I'll be able to continue with the "f**king grind" that is my life. For now, though, the dream is alive.

Fired up! Ready to go!

My reading schedule is all out of whack, but I'm making some pretty good progress. I went ahead and picked up the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide, and I thought Keith Sexton's piece about starting hands in tournament stud was excellent. I didn't think so highly, however, of David Grey's section. As mentioned previously, I read a review on it, and I would have to agree with the reviewer's assessment that Grey's teaching is just way too vague to be of much use. Hopefully, the other sections will justify the $30 I spent on it, whenever I get around to perusing them. So far I think I've gotten about $3 worth of value. Will update.

Last night, I went and played the 4/8 Stud at Commerce, then came home and read the Chip Reese section of SuperSystem. It was really encouraging to re-read that text after so long ... there were some tactics that I had just glossed over in the past, but which I had nonetheless been executing at the table. Things in the book that I had not highlighted before, but had somehow managed to learn through experience. Certain concepts made more sense to me now. So I'm starting to feel pretty confident about my game. I'm definitely NOWHERE NEAR a Ted Forrest or a John Hennigan, but right now I am pretty sure I'm currently getting the maximum out of my abilities.

(Sidebar: This is why it's recommended to read poker books after you are already somewhat familiar with a particular game. Sure, there are some books made especially for the complete novice. But even with those, I think you'll get more out of text if you already have a good grasp on the mechanics and basic rhythms of play. Then you can read up and plug some of the [inevitable] holes in your game. Play more, and then re-read. Rinse, and repeat. My two cents.)

Today on the bus to work, and on my lunch break, I've been reading the Sklansky text. This is an extremely dense book, and there are a lot of things I did not pick up on while reading through it before. They do a really good job of covering just about every situation that might arise in a seven-card stud cash game. Better put -- they provide enough examples of concepts and the different variations on those concepts that come up during gameplay that it's really easy to extrapolate their teachings to cover any hand of stud poker. Must read!

I've also been practicing on PokerStars with stud tournaments. I've played in two of them, and busted in each. Not a great sign. But these were low-stakes donkaments, with plenty of idiots who chased me down the river every time I picked up a good starting hand. I imagine the quality of play in a $1,500 tourney will be higher. Plus, I generally just do better in live games. There are so many small things that don't really translate to online play. Thus, I'm not too concerned about my lack of success on Stars. It's good practice just to see how play is affected by the rising blinds, how the inability to rebuy changes strategy, etc. ... I've experienced these things in hold'em tournaments but not in stud. The lack of many other ways to practice makes the frustration of online play kinda worth it.

That's about all I have to report. I blast off in five days, and it can't get here soon enough. It's taking a lot for me to resist playing in hold'em home games until the big day. But I'm busy enough at work that I can manage the urge ... I think.

Tweeting ... All Systems Go.

I've gone over to the dark side.

Follow me on Twitter ... @grindorgamble

Is this me?

Tao of Poker - Donkeys at the 2008 WSOP

I'm a fan of Pauly's blog, though I haven't really kept up with him with any regularity. The picture he paints of the $1,500 WSOP events is pretty bleak. Thousands of clueless donkeys being led to the slaughter, and then braying about their terrible luck to their loved ones during the walk of shame through the Amazon Room and back to their hotels. Hundreds of home game heroes and weekend warriors with dreams of poker glory filling their sad little heads. And the local Vegas pros who are only too willing to relieve the poor wretches of their precious bankrolls.

Naturally, I would like to think of myself as one of the winners. I have spreadsheets and logs that tell me that I'm a winning poker player. I've played at enough cardrooms and in enough house games to feel that I can go toe-to-toe with just about any low- to mid-stakes player the country can offer. I definitely think I have an edge in your typical donkament field. I would like to think that I'm different.

But this is the World Series of Poker.

And EVERYONE thinks they are different.

Probably the only way I'll find out what role I'll be playing in the Rio's annual Fish Festival (alternatively nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Rock") is to actually find out. Buy a seat and play in the damned thing. One tournament loss doesn't necessarily doom a poker player to the depths of obscurity forever, but one big win can certainly propel him to some ridiculous heights. I've already decided to take my shot, as stated in previous posts. But reading that Tao post today was pretty freakin' sobering. Quite the cautionary tale.

Forking over fifteen Benjamins isn't something I can take lightly just yet. So I'm going to have to try my best to make this an investment, and not just a charitable donation.

Hollywood Swingin'

Gah! What a brutal couple of days bankroll-wise. Saturday I was debating whether or not I should play the cash games after a local home tournament. I ended up doing so, and proceeded to lose about $580 playing heads up and then three-handed. Both guys I can outplay pretty easily; one is far too loose and the other too tight. But the loose guy was hitting everything. Turning an out-kicked pair into two pair. Turning a lower pair into trips. Making all of his draws while I missed mine. Outflopping me with dominated hands. And so on ...

The tight guy was hitting on me too. On one hand, I flop top pair with the nut flush draw. He flops a set, and trap-calls my lead-out bet. I make my flush on the turn, and lead out again. He raises, I shove, and he calls. But, I get Greensteined when the Ace pairs on the river. Another time, his low flopped straight holds up against my bigger open-ender plus flush draw. Ai ya!

And this morning, I had to drop about $720 on dental care ... my insurance policy (a good one!) only covered half of my crown procedure. In hindsight, I might have been better off claiming I forgot my checkbook in the car and dodging payment until after the Vegas trip. But that would have required me to screen phone calls for the next few weeks, and ignore all the "courtesy" notices that come in the mail. Well, some time ago I decided that that portion of my life would be over. So I sucked it up and shelled out the cash then and there.

Nevertheless, now I'm stuck $1,300 and I still have a week and a half before I even get on the plane to Vegas. This will put a cramp in my side action, for sure. After paying for food and drink for three days in a city that is particularly well-designed to separate tourists from their hard-earned cash, I'm down to about $600 to play games other than Event #16 ... yikes!

I think it's time to either find some investors, or to make a quick score or three before I go ...



BTW: Until fairly recently, $600 would have been plenty of bankroll for me to have a great Vegas trip with plenty of gamble. Nowadays, it feels like chump change. I can't decide if that means I've progressed a lot or just become more of a degen.

Self-Awareness

I'm up late in the wee hours of the morning. Supposed to be working, but instead I'm reading through some old blog posts that I wrote back in the day. It's really interesting to me. Some of these posts contain fairly deep insights and creative ways to think about (mainly) no limit hold'em. But others are overly simplified, and in some cases just plain wrong. I wonder how in the world I won the money that I did if I actually thought and played like some of the strategy-articles I wrote suggest. (At one point, I wrote something like "recognizing when you're on a lucky streak and when you are on an unlucky streak is a key to poker success." LOL, yikes!!) Maybe the poker games in which I played were just much softer than the ones I play in now.

Another thing that strikes me is how cocky I came off in a few of my posts. That aspect is rather embarrassing. I take some comfort in the fact that I am a lot more humble now than I was then, even though I am certainly a better player. I suppose now I recognize more of my weaknesses and limitations, and have a better grasp of what separates me from the true world-class players out there. I couldn't see these things before, because my knowledge was too limited. I had too many blinders on that had to be shed through trials on the green felt, before I saw how much better I could be (and still can be). I guess it's like they say -- the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know.

Now, I am a confident player. I know that my skills are as strong as ever, and that my level of experience and poker "wisdom" are finally starting to catch up with whatever natural abilities I've had all along. But even with that confidence, I'm better able to see areas for improvement. The arrogance has not been completely eradicated quite yet. However, now I think my self-awareness has improved to a point where I can better limit the effects of my shortcomings, and use my strengths to the maximum.

Reading through the posts, especially ones where I staked out a particular position on a poker topic, I have to smile. They remind me of some of the players I play with these days. Very solid players, but players that are unable to see beyond a particular set of beliefs. Players that don't even realize how limited and inside-the-box their thinking is.

I take heart from the fact that I can see a real progression from my very first posts from early 2006 all the way through my posts from late 2007. I think it bodes well for my future, and I'm looking forward to looking back once again a few years down the line from now. The upside to poker knowledge is infinite.

Light Reading

To help me prepare for the stud event, I have decided to revisit what I consider the sacred texts of seven-card stud play. I know reading up before a major tournament probably seems routine to most amateur and semi-pro poker players out there (they're thinking DUH, or should I say durrrr?), but I'm trying my best to document my entire process of preparing for and playing this event. Afterward, the plan is to review what preparations seemed helpful and what things I would have been okay without. This should help me prepare better for next year's Series, and give my poker friends some tools to use in their eventual quests for bracelet glory. A little bit of analysis, as Phil Laak [1] would say, "for the television audience at home."

The book that first gave me an inclination to try my hand at seven-card stud was the late Chip Reese's section of the original Supersystem. His writing style is ridiculously easy for the beginner to digest, and yet includes enough advanced concepts that after reading through it once or twice, you will absolutely be able to hold your own in most stud cash games.

The other book that really shaped me as a rookie was Sklansky's Seven-Card Stud for Advanced Players. Most poker book enthusiasts will tell you that this is required reading for any intermediate stud player looking to improve his or her game. I would agree with them wholeheartedly. This book expands on many of the concepts that Reese's writings introduce, and also contains many ideas all its own.

I am currently re-reading Sklansky, with an eye toward finishing it by the middle of next week, and to read the Reese section by the end of next week. Then I'll have one more week to review all my notes on each before the trip. I am debating picking up the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide. From the review I've read, David Grey's section on Stud tournaments is solid, but not spectacular. Worth it? I am also questioning if I really need to buy and read through Max Stern's Championship Stud in the short amount of time I have before the tournament. Debatable. But I generally prefer more information to less, so we'll see. (I've heard that the Razz section of Championship is one of the definitive texts, though.)

I also plan to skim through the manuals in the hours before the tournament, just as a bit of a warm-up exercise. A little last-minute cram, just like back in college. I think this preparation strategy has an edge over playing stud hands immediately before the event (which was another option I considered). This is because I want to have in my head the correct way to play certain hands -- not just the way that I typically play them. Although I feel I am pretty good at stud, even winning players have certain tendencies and weaknesses that cause them to lose equity over the long run, to not make as much as they could. Including the pros. Like Phil Ivey [2] said, "I don't know anybody who plays every hand perfect ... besides Phil Hellmuth." [3] So I'm thinking it'll be good to get outside of my own mind, to a certain extent.

The question is, will this cause me to over-think, and not trust the instincts that I've built up over all my hands of play? As Phil Gordon [4] said, “It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be good at poker. Anybody with a fourth-grade education can figure out the logic behind the odds and outs.” I guess if I bust out early or play some hands egregiously, there will be plenty of time to second-guess the method. For now, I think doing plenty of reading beforehand will be +EV.

Staying at Planet Hollywood

Wow, how things change! I just booked a room for the weekend of the 6th at Planet Hollywood. The last time I blogged about poker (November 2007), PH was just about to have its grand opening. I played in their poker room once during last summer's WSOP, and I have to say I liked it. I only played for about an hour, but I'll never forget them giving everyone free donuts for breakfast. This was like manna from heaven at the time, as I had just pulled an all-nighter on the first leg of a 5-day/4-night stay, had already blown through a rather unhealthy percentage of my bankroll, and needed the carbs just to keep my eyes open until I could check into my hotel room later in the day ... but that's another story for another time. I have so many tales I wish I had blogged about from that summer, but I should be focusing on this World Series, not last year's! Suffice it to say that, even though I know many casinos offer little comps like that, the timing of that particular courtesy gave PH an A+ for first impressions.

Another big change is that "the wife," as I occasionally referred to my longtime girlfriend, has now become The Wife. We got hitched three weeks ago (no, not in Vegas, though I somehow maneuvered my way into spending part of our honeymoon there, hehe) and she's coming along on this trip to root for me and such. I have mixed feelings about this. Obviously we are still newlyweds, and naturally we both want to maximize the honeymoon phase of our marriage as best we can. Spend as much time together as possible. Still, it does mean that I'll have one more thing to worry about. During our past trips to Glitter Gulch together, there has been some tension arising from the fact that I tend to want to play as much poker as possible when I'm there. It's just extremely torturous for me to be around such a high concentration of fish and not be allowed to cast a net! So in order for me to be happy, it means either her sweating me for hours on end (boring), or her finding other activities during the long stretches that I'm playing (lonely). Also, she likes to do things like going to shows and going to the trendy ultraclubs -- activities which tend to have the same peak hours as juicy poker games, and which cost me rather than earn me money. For one of us to be happy and the other not be miserable requires quite the balancing act.

The Wife has assured me that this trip will be different. "Since the main reason for the trip is for you to play poker, and I'm just tagging along," she says to me, "I'll totally be fine with you playing as much as you need to." And somehow, I actually believe her. I can't even count the number of times that she has surprised me by being a heckuva trooper, putting up with all kinds of less-than-ideal situations with nary a complaint. There's a reason she's The Wife now. I am giving her the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

And there is a side of me that really wants her to be there. I won't have any poker buddies out there (at least as of now) to encourage me to play well and to mourn my bad beats with me. Even though I am naturally a bit of a lone wolf, a part of me didn't want to step into such a large ring without having someone in my corner between the rounds. Hopefully The Wife can double as my "Mick." I think subconsciously, this came through when I was selecting my room. Las Vegas isn't doing so well with this economic downturn, and as such there are some hotels offering some sick deals on rooms right now.

Unfortunately, Planet Hollywood is not one of those hotels. I am paying about triple the bare minimum price to stay in Vegas that weekend, and I am sure on some level I chose PH because I knew The Wife was more likely to come along than if I had booked, say, Gold Coast, which is much cheaper and pretty much right next to the Rio (i.e., absurdly more practical), but perhaps not as glitzy. (Comma count = six on that last sentence. I'm, sorry, Mrs., Stave.)

On the bright side, PH is right smack in the middle of the Strip, and I can reach all kinds of great cash game action with a short stroll in either direction. Or just right downstairs. Furthermore, the stop for the twice-an-hour free shuttle to the Rio sits just between PH and Paris. So there's some practicality there too.

I only hope that the PH buffet is as scrumptious as its predecessor Aladdin's was back in the day. Hopefully, change turns out to be good.

P.S.

I realize that this blog has been all but defunct for quite some time now. It would be a MAMMOTH task to try and recap a year and a half's worth of poker action from both myself and my blogmate Billy in the few weeks before I launch for the WSOP. So what I'm going to try to do is to incorporate information that's relevant to current events into my postings as best I can. We'll see if it works or not.

And though I initially rejected it as wretched and vile, I am coming dangerously close to using Twitter. In some ways, it really makes a lot of sense as a way to provide regular updates on how an important event is going (assuming live-blogging is out of the question). So perhaps I'll create a Twitter account just for the WSOP, and then try my best to walk away from it forever. =) If I do become a Twittererererer, I'll let y'all know how to follow along.

Back to work for me now ... at 8pm. Ugh. This is why I need to strike it rich at poker.

The WSOP and Me.

Well, I am finally going to do it. I've decided it's time for me to try my luck in the greatest tournament series on the planet - the World Series of Poker. I'm going to play Event #16, the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud tournament on June 6th.

I feel like this is as good a time as any to take my shot. I have now been playing cards for almost five years. At one point in poker's history, that would be considered barely getting your feet wet. But with the advent of online poker, and the immense volume of poker strategy literature that is available these days, players can rather quickly gain a lifetime's worth of experience in a relatively short period of time. The speed of online poker, and the ability to play multiple tables at once, allows a player to see hands at a rate the old pros could never achieve. Simultaneously, poker books and articles are widely available, and allow a player to learn tricks and avoid traps that Doyle Brunson and T.J. Cloutier had to learn the hard way. (Incidentally, both of these guys have written influential poker books themselves.) The poker information out there allows us newer players to stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak.

Do I think I'm ready for the challenge, or that I can really compete with the professionals for a bracelet? Yes and No. Or rather, No, and Yes. To play a WSOP event in 2009 has been one of my poker goals since at least 2007 (another being to play the Main Event in 2010). Now that the time is here, I can't honestly say that I'm a favorite to even make the money in an event. Furthermore, this will be the largest buy-in I have ever made into a single session of either cash or tournament poker. So I think there is a very real chance that the money on the line will affect my play negatively. Lastly, I really just can't shake the feeling that I'm just throwing away $1,500 by doing this. Do I really have the bankroll to potentially blow through a dime and a half in a few hours, and not miss it? No, I do not.

But I think the second question -- whether or not I can compete -- has a different answer. I do not consider myself a tournament specialist by any means. I greatly prefer to play cash games. But my tournament record is nothing to sneeze at. I find that I often play better in tournaments, as somehow I do a better job of reining in my loose-aggressive tendencies until they are needed. And I've crushed most seven-card stud games I've played in. Along with cash no-limit hold'em, it is one of the games in which I consider myself an expert.

Furthermore, I've taken some steps to improve my chances. Since I can only afford a low buy-in, I've decided to stay away from the no limit hold'em events. While I have the most experience playing that game, I know that there are thousands of other young guns out there who also play that game better than any other. But there aren't so many young guns who are aces at seven-stud. I consider myself pretty rare in that regard, as the average stud player is much older than 26. The game just is not as popular these days.

And since the smaller buy-in no limit events tend to have fields through the roof and are often lotteries, I've elected to play an event that historically has had tiny fields by comparison. Last year there were 381 entrants. Given the current recession, I expect that number to stay at about the same level.

Another advantage to playing a limit event as opposed to pot limit or no limit is that the effects of getting unlucky on one hand are limited, at least in the early rounds. Of course, as the blinds and antes increase, it can get to the point where you go broke in one hand in stud just like in no limit hold'em. But early on, the big coolers and bad beats won't hurt as much, and won't knock you out two seconds into the tournament.

This particular tournament is also good because I think a lot of the top pros will be tied up elsewhere. Event #16 starts at 5pm, but there is a $5,000 No Limit event that starts at noon the same day. With the higher buy-in, I'd expect several of the big names to be playing that tournament. I'm sure there will be some that bust out of the $5K really quickly, but hopefully that steams them up enough that they come over and play worse in the stud tourney. Even pros aren't completely immune to the effects of bad beats and extended sessions.

However, there are some factors that will be working against me in the event (outside of the obvious ones like my lack of experience in big events, lack of experience in stud tournaments as opposed to cash games, etc.). The hugest disadvantage is the sleep factor. Hundreds of thousands of World Series hopefuls have come to the big show, completely unprepared for the looooong, long hours required for these events. I have played a few long sessions in my life, but only a handful as long as this one rates to be if I survive the first day. The schedule says play will begin at 5pm and end at approximately 3am on Sunday. Then we're back at it at 2pm on Sunday!! I'll be doubly disadvantaged, because I am flying into Vegas Saturday morning at 8am (!), which means I'll have to wake up at about 5am to fly from Los Angeles.

It will take a LOT of discipline for me to rest up in my hotel room, and not try and get in on too much of the side action before the event. And, this being such a monumental step in my poker career, there is a significant chance that I'll be too amped up in the early afternoon to get any rest. So a large part of my survival will rest on my ability to avoid physically and mentally crashing at around 10pm. I think my odds of being at the top of my game in those crucial rounds are realistically slim.

I had originally wanted to play some satellites before the event, but now I'm a bit more ambivalent about it. I think winning a seat for $175 will allow me to play a lot more comfortably than ponying up the full amount. Even if I have to play two or three satellites to get the buy-in, I'll feel much better about the stakes. However, as mentioned above, all that poker action might worsen my play, as the number of hours played in one day continues to mount. I haven't decided yet what to do about it. I might play the event until I bust, and then play satellites and cash games afterwards to "retroactively" win my buy-in. Or something along those lines.

So is the whole thing worth it? I know that I will inevitably be pretty disappointed if/when I bust out of the tournament. That is the nature of tournaments -- the only person who doesn't get sent home is the winner. Even second place wishes they had done better.

But I think it's good that I am not really expecting much in the way of results. I mostly just want to get the experience under my belt, but still have a shot at winning something. This first step into a larger arena will give me a better idea of what to expect in World Series to come. And, if nothing else, I'm guaranteed to have at least a few stories to tell.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't play if I didn't think I had a chance to win.