Poker Bully

Goodbye for now

2011-03-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

I have decided that I am no longer gaining any knowledge from writing out my poker exploits online. It seems more of a burden than a learning exercise. So for my handful of followers, I will be posting much less frequently.

If I come up with an interesting idea or theory I may hash it out again, but for now I will concentrate on my game in the silence of my home.

50 Seat Guarantee to PCA Live Blog

2010-12-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

I qualified for the $700 satellite into the Pokerstars Carribean Adventure last week for only $21. Today they are running the 50 seat guarantee. Right now as we just started there is a huge overlay as there are only 769 entries. They would have to hit 1186 runners to break even. It may not be so bad when it's all said and done as you can register late for the first 90 minutes and the structue looks very deep.

We are starting with 3000 in chips and the blind levels are 15 minutes each.

Hand #1 I call a raise from the BB with 98o. 3 players to the flop of Q-7-2 rainbow. I check fold.

Hand #2 I call a raise from early position with AQo on the button. Heads up to the flop and it's K-9-K. The raiser makes a c-bet and I fold.

Hand #3 I raise from early positon with AcTc. The small blind calls. I miss the flop but bluff at it. I get called. I miss the turn and check behind. The river comes and I still have Ace high. The sb bets 2x the pot and I let him have it. I'm down to 2,725 in chips. Blinds are still 10-20.

Hand #4 I pick up 99 in middle position. The player to my right open limps and I raise to 80. Everyone folds except the limper. The flop is Ah-6d-2h. He checks, I bet 120 and he folds. My first winning hand! 2,835 in chips and blinds are up to 15-30.

Hand #5 I have Qc9c in BB. Button open raises to 90 and I call. Flop is 6c-8s-Jh. I check and he bets 120. I decided to check raise my gut shot straight draw with one over card. I make it 360 and he calls instantly. Ok I guess I'm done with this hand. The turn pairs my 9. It goes check check. The river is a 5. Should I bluff? I can't pull the trigger and it goes check check and my opponent shows JsTc for top pair. I'm down to 2370.

Hand #6 I have pocket 8's utg plus one. I raise 3x the blind and everyone folds.

Hand #7 I peek at Kd8d on the button. It's folded to me and I try to steal by raising to 90. The tight BB calls. The flop is 6d-Qh-3d. Nice one. It's checked to me and I bet 120. Tight BB folds.

Hand #8 Very next hand I pick up 7s6s and I call an early position raise. Heads up to a flop. I miss again. He bets and takes it down.

Hand #9 KdQd in BB. One early raiser to 80 and the button calls. I call and flop is Ks-7c-5c. I think about leading out but I check to see what the other guys do. They both check as well. Turn card sucks as it is the 8c. Now I bet 200 in case they have a single club. The button calls. The river is the As. I decide to bet 300 because I don't want to give the button a chance to bluff at it. He folds. I am up to 2,745.

I found Liv Boree playing in the satellite as well. I looked up her table and she's stuck at the same table as Shaun Deeb. Ouch!

Hand #10 I'm in the big blind with 3h7d. Two limpers and I check my option. Flop is Qh-Ks-7s. I figure the limpers have small pairs or small suited connectors so I fire out with 3rd pair. It works and I win a small one.

Hand #11 Wheelie111 the chip leader at our table open limps in middle position. I limp in the cutoff with 66. The small blind folds and the BB checks. Flop is 4c-Ks-Qd. BB checks and Wheelie bets 88 into a 140 pot. I float and call. BB folds. Turn is 9s and Wheelie checks. I bet 200 and steal it. I'm back above 3000.

Hand #12 Qs3s in the BB. paushtero in middle position min raises to 100. I call in BB. The flop is Qh-Jd-Js. I check and he bets 150 into a 225 pot. I call. We check down the turn and river. He shows Ah8h and I win.

Hand #13 I pick up pocket Queens on the button. I open raise and win the blinds.

Hand #14 I pick up pocket Kings on the BB. paushtero raises to 150 in middle position. It's folded to me and I reraise to 450. He calls. Flop is Jh-8h-5h. I have the King of Hearts. I bet 500 into the 925 pot. He raises all in and has me covered. I call and he rolls over AhAc. Fuck! The turn is another heart and I'm drawing dead. Busto after 1 hour.

Why Aren't The Games Always This Easy?

2010-12-19T15:45:00.001-08:00

The big anniversary trip to Vegas started with a delayed flight. This threw a slight crimp in my plans to meet my friend, Teresa for lunch. Instead of a nice leisurely lunch at a nice restaurant, we were forced to grab a quick bite at a restaurant near the airport. Still it was nice to catch up and it saved me a $20 cab ride to my hotel.

After checking in at Caesars Palace, I decided to see if I could book a massage for Friday. I made a mental note that I was not going to pay more than $200. I asked for the price of a 75 minute massage at the Qua spa and it was $220. Wow! That's more than $3 a minute if you include tip. I said no to the massage and counted myself up $200 already.

I jumped into a $1-$3 No Limit Hold'em game at the poker room and I could tell right away that it was a good game. There was an old married couple in the game and the husband was legally blind with macular degeneration. The dealer had to read the board to him more than a few times. Now just because you're blind doesn't mean you are a bad player, but this guy also loved to call big bets with any pair. Naturally I managed to flop two sets against him when he flopped a pair and took his stack both times.

His wife was not much better, but I never got the chance to pick on her.

After a few hours of profitable poker, I joined my wife and some of her compatriots at the Palm restaurant in the Forum Shops. Dinner was fantastic! We had crab cakes and shrimp for appetizers. I had a filet mignon for dinner that was incredibly tender and cooked perfectly. I also enjoyed some shoe string potatoes and creamed spinach for side dishes and some great chardonnay.

I was so full of wine and food after dinner that I couldn't keep my eyes open and went to bed by 10:00 PM.

I woke up early the next morning and was itching to get back to the poker table. I love to play early and catch the drunks and tired players who have been there all night. Sure enough I sat down and there were two players that had over $1500 in front of them. I quickly figured out they had that money because they were a little crazy. I managed to win a few pots and decided I wanted to play the 9:00 AM tournament.

I was told that they usually get 3 tables for this tournament on weekdays, but there were only 10 players for this one. I won the draw for the button and picked up Queens on my very first hand. I won a small pot and was off to a good start.

I quickly deduced that there were some bad players in this tournament and I could win some big pots if I hit my hands. Unfortunately I had some bad luck and got crippled early. I picked up AQ and raised in late position. The early position limper called my raise and we were heads up to the flop. The flop had an Ace, my opponent checked and I made a 3/4 pot sized bet. He called and we see the turn of a Jack. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think that put a straight or a flush out there. My opponent checked and I decided to keep the pot small by checking behind. The river was another Jack and this time he led into me with a bet. I figure that I have to call since he could be bluffing after I showed weakness on the turn. He rolls over Ace-Jack for a full house. So he 3 outed me for a big pot and I was down to 15 BB.

A couple of players busted out and I played shove monkey poker for a while and never got called. Most of my hands were weak Aces or middle suited connecters. I knew that the players were getting irritated with me and they were going to spite call me soon. Luckily I picked up two Queens. There was a raise from early position and I pushed all in for 10 BB. He called with Ace-King and we were off to the races. Luckily the Hilton Sisters held up and now I had a stack to work with.

We got down to 5 players and the blinds went up, so I was getting short again. The player who beat me with Ace-Jack earlier had been playing back at me on a couple of my blind steals. This time, he raised in early position. I had the big blind and I pushed all in with As-2s. I like my play here because I definitely had enough to make him fold most hands. Plus having an Ace in my hand made it less likely that he had one as well. And if he wakes up with KK or something nearly as good, at least I have an Ace I can hit.

Shockingly he called and turned up Ad-3d. What a horrible call! Most likely we would have a chop since as long as all 5 cards are higher than a 3, we will have the same hand. Unfortunately I hit my 2 on the turn which ended up giving my opponent a straight.

The $70 I lost in the tournament was my only losing session of poker for the weekend.

After a brief break, I decided to check out the new poker room at the Aria casino. As far as poker rooms go, it's pretty nice but nothing better than the Venetian or Caesars. They do have the Phil Ivey high stakes room, which seems to be inhabited by Jean-Robert Bellande most of the time. He was there when I got there and playing with Jason Mercier, Barry Greenstein, and Todd Brunson.

They opened a new game of $1-$3 No Limit and I sat down to see if my streak would continue. I am starting to hate starting new games. They always play so tight for the first hour.

The Aria was the sight of my "what if" moment of the trip. I picked up AsKd under the gun. I raised to $15 and got 5 callers. The flop was Qs-9s-3s. The small blind led out for $50. He had been playing pretty solid so he probably had a pretty good hand. I called to see what would happen behind me. The player on my direct left, then raised to $150. This cleared out two players and it came back to the small blind. He only had $80 left and he called pretty quickly. The raiser had about $150 left in his stack.

I sat back and did some math in my head. The pot was $405 and it was $100 for me to call. The question was, did one of the other players already have a flush? The under the gun player might, but that would still leave me with 7 outs and a 28% chance at winning the pot by the river. If he had a set, then I have 9 outs and a 36% chance. Instead of calling, I could raise all in for $250. This would make the pot odds $250 to win $555. A little better than 2-1 odds. I knew the player on my left was capable of raising with as little as top pair, so I may have even more outs against him.

I said, "Let's gamble, I'm all in" and pushed my stacks towards the middle. Now the player on my left hesitated. He actually wondered if he was drawing dead. This made me feel better. Even though it was only $150 to win $650, I would think that he would call with almost anything. He finally called and showed Ace-Queen with no spades. The small blind had pocket 3's for a set of 3's.

The dealer flipped over the turn card and it was the 8 of spades! Awesome, this may be the biggest pot I ever win. "Don't pair the board" I commanded the dealer. He didn't listen and paired the 8. Now the dealer tries to make sense of the side pot. He chops it up and sends three 20 chip stacks of $5 chips to me. Wait, what? After 5 minutes of math in my head, I realize that by winning the side pot against the player with Ace-Queen, I only lost $20 in the hand. Hey I'll take that as the consolation prize any day.

Eventually I chopped out a small $50 profit and went back to meet my wife for dinner. We stayed at Caesars and went to the Teppan-yaki restaurant in the hotel. It was a pleasant and quiet dinner. The sushi was excellent and once again, the steak was fantastic.

After dinner we headed to the Bellagio to look at the Christmas display and reminisce about our wedding 5 years ago. After snapping a few pictures and stopping by the bakery back at Caesars for a little dessert, we had run out of things to do. Michele was feeling tired and it was only 8:00 PM. I tried to reach one of my friends who was in town, but he left his phone in the room. Michele graciously offered to let me go play poker while she went to bed.

This had the makings of a disaster, since in most people's eyes I was doing the "wrong thing". But trust me, Michele was going to be asleep within five minutes of getting to the room and I would have been in bed staring at the ceiling for two hours.

I went back to the poker room at Caesars and this time it was hopping. Luckily I got in a game right away. Soon after, a young man in his 30's sat down and whipped out a thick wad of 100's. He bought in for the $500 max and immediately announced that he would raise his first hand without looking at his cards.

He followed through on that promise and kept doing it for the entire time I was there. $25 preflop and at least $25 on the flop almost every hand without looking at his cards. He kept trying to get the guy next to him to join him in the escapades but he wasn't buying it. For whatever reason, this guy was on life tilt and was just looking to gamble. I just tightened up and waited for my opportunity. Finally I got it when I called his raise with Kd 4d in the small blind. There were two other players in the pot and the flop was K-T-6. I checked with the intention of check raising all in. The crazy guy bet $50 and the other two players folded. I raised all in for about $250 and he called. He claimed he had Ten-six but when he rolled over his hand, it was Ten-Eight. My top pair held up and I raked in a nice pot.

One of the dealers was starting to get irritated with the crazy guy because he was betting out of turn and trying to blind raise preflop before the cards were even dealt. A floor man was called and I could feel the situation was going to get tense. I don't have any fun at these types of tables where everyone is on pins and needles. Plus I didn't need the crazy guy to get mad and start playing solid poker. It was 10 PM and I decided to call it another profitable night.

Overall I came out $760 ahead for the trip in one of my most successful trips of all time.

What's New?

2010-12-15T21:02:00.001-08:00

A few quick updates and thoughts:

1. Bill and I started our annual golf bet. $200 for the winner of the best of 10 rounds. We both played awful in the first match and we tied with 92. Our next match should be in a week.

2. My online poker has been stale for the last few weeks. I finished the month of November just barely above $5,000 in the bankroll. That was better than I thought, as it felt like I did nothing but lose in the last week of November. My apathetic play has continued in December, but there may be a cure.

I am heading to Las Vegas tomorrow to celebrate my 5 year wedding anniversary. I should have plenty of time to play poker and hopefully come back with some great stories.

3. The Harry Reid Online Poker Bill. Right now it seems to be dead. Harry had been working for weeks on drafting a bill that he could attach to must pass legislation in the lame duck session of the Senate. It doesn't look like he is gooing to accomplish his goal because Congress can't agree on anything and putting any additional controversy on a bill, is a sure way to get the whole thing shot down.

The basics are that he wants a 15 month ban on all online poker and then the land based casinos can come in and start licensed websites. The last I heard is that it would take an additional 2 years for Full Tilt and Pokerstars to come back since they had accepted U.S. customers during the UIGEA. Plus they were looking to restrict it to U.S. players only.

I would hate to have 15 months without online poker and more than 3 years without Rush Poker. So in a way, I hope we look back 2 years from now and say, "Aren't we glad that first crappy bill failed?"

I understand that some people are desperate for legalized poker, but frankly that is not a world I want to play in. My little money transfers have worked just fine in spite of the Department of Justice cracking down on a few providers. I hope the PPA can negotiate a better deal a few years down the road.

Thoughts on My Play

2010-11-26T16:48:00.000-08:00

I have not been very motivated to play lately. It probably has something to do with not having a monetary goal to shoot for. My big profit in October went to help pay the bills instead of something fun. November will probably be a small loss.

I am also suffering from a case of fancy play syndrome. I played in the 3-250 spread limit game at Casino Arizona a couple weeks ago and ran a ridiculously stupid bluff. I had been up around $50 for most of the session and had about 15 minutes left before I had to leave. A younger fellow raised in early position and I called pocket 5's on the button. We were the only two in the pot and the flop was Q-9-3. He made the continuation bet and I decided that I was going to float him and try to take it away when he checked on the turn. The turn was a King. He made another bet. Instead of being smart and giving up, I decided to raise. I put in about 1/2 of my remaining stack. My opponent kind of jumped back in his chair a little bit, so I thought he might actually fold. Then he asked me how much I had left. After I told him, he pushed the rest of his stack into the middle. I folded quickly.

I have noticed that I tend to force the action sometimes at the end of a session. Especially if I had been up early but am down late. I start thinking that I can get back to even with just one good hand. It doesn't hurt me much in limit poker but in these spread limit or No Limit games, it can really kill me. I need to remember that it's just one long session over my lifetime.

Today I decided to play the 11:15 AM tournament at Casino Arizona. There was a pretty big turnout as the board said there was 208 players. I started out pretty well and had doubled my stack by the first break. Inevitably, the blinds were going up faster than my stack and buy the time of the second break I was down to 11 big blinds.

My demise came when I was in the Small Blind. There was one limper and the button raised to 4x the blind. I looked down to find Ad-Kd. I had about 14 BB by this time because earlier I had pushed all in with pocket 6's over the top of a raise by the player on my right. So I knew if I pushed in again, he was likely to call. Plus he started the hand with about 9 BB so he was pretty much priced in with any two.

He did make the call with pocket 10's and I lost the race. I was left with 5 BB and the blinds were going up in 5 minutes.

This is where I am constantly amazed at how tight everyone playes with a short stack live compared to online. My favorite was when I pushed all in for the second time in the round with 10-4 of spades. I was UTG+1 and had 5 BB. It was folded to the BB who was an older gentleman. I did not think much of his game as he tended to overbet when he had a good hand, "to prevent people from sucking out on him". He hemmed and hawed for a few seconds and folded Ace-Ten face up. Looking back on it now, I should have flipped up my cards just for the tilt factor.

A couple of hands later, it folded to me in the small blind and I found QJ. I pushed again but got called by K-9 of clubs. My opponent turned a King and I was drawing dead. I finished in 70th place.

One of my original goals for the year was to qualify for the Pokerstars Carribean Adventure. I would still love to give it a shot, but so far their qualifiers have sucked. I like satellites that have multiple seats to give a way and a cheap way to qualify. It seems like most of the satellites I see only have one or two seats available. I hate to play for a few hours and end up with $100. Maybe the frequency will pick up here in the last month.

Biggest Tournament Score To Date!

2010-10-11T07:38:00.001-07:00

Sunday was supposed to start off with a White Label $15k free roll due to my rakeback agreement with Full Tilt. While I played that one, I figured I would have another tournament going at the same time to ease the boredom. So I fired up a $26 Rush Poker tournament on Full Tilt.

In the free roll I went bust in the second hand with my QQ vs. J2s. He called my reraise preflop and then flopped the flush draw with an open ended straight draw. He got there on the turn and I was done before I started my sandwich.

Luckily the Rush tournament was in full swing and I did not have an excuse to turn off the computer.

I ran incredibly hot in this tournament. As an excercise, let's look at all the hands I came from behind in, or had a slightly best hand hold up.

1. My A8o vs 77 I hit 8 on the river
2. My AA vs K4, my opponent hits K on flop, but has no idea and loses his stack
3. My JJ vs ATs, my opponent flops an Ace but checks the flop. The turn gives me a flush draw, so I call his bet. The river gives me a Jack and I squeeze a raise in on the river.
4. My AQo vs AKs, I raise preflop, and opponent reraises all in for 10x the blind. I hit King on the flop, Jack on the turn, and Ten on the river.
5. My KQs vs TT, I open raise from sb and opponent comes over the top to put me all in. I call and flop a Queen.
6. My K9o vs AQo, I raise all in preflop and get called by shorter stack with AQo. I hit the 9 on the flop.
7. My AJo vs A2o, I raise utg and a short stack reraises all in from BB with A2o
8. My A9o vs Q8o, My opponent tries to steal from button and I call all my chips with Ace high and it holds up.
9. My 75o vs A5o, He steals from SB and I call. Flop is 6s 4s 7h. He shoves for 30k when the pot is 10k. I call and win.
10. Final table now: my 99 vs AJ holds up and gives me chip lead
11. Short stack goes all in utg with J8s, SB tries to isolate and reraises all in with A6o. I wake up with AA in BB and knock them both out.
12. 3 handed. I have KTo in BB. Button raises and I call. The third player who is out of the hand is chatting about a deal. I have already checked the box to say I am open to discussing the chop 3 handed. My opponent is the lone hold out. Flop is Th 8s 7d. I check, he bets, I raise all in, he snap calls with AA. Turn is a third Ten for me and I knock him out.

That my friends is called running very good.

The play stopped and I was surprised that Full Tilt has a decent screen to discuss deals. We said ok on an ICM split which is a mathematical formula based on our current chip counts. I walked away with $1450 and first place.

Except for my WSOP satellite win, I believe that is my biggest score ever.

And I wasn't done. While this Rush craziness was going on, I was also in a $26 knockout tournament. We started with 3,387 players. You get $4 for every player you knock out, plus the normal prize distribution.

I ran pretty good in the tournament as well and with 215 players left, I was 4th in chips.

Unfortunately I did not adjust to the ramped up aggression as we got into the later stages. I kept trying to raise small and fire small continuation bets. Instead of taking down pots, I was constantly raised off of my hands.

I finally got short and pushed all in and ran into a good hand. I finished in 100th place for a small win of $100.

Overall, one of my best weekends of tournament poker ever!

FBI Cracks Down on Pokerstars in Arizona

2010-09-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

I saw this interesting blurb in this morning’s business section.

For Immediate Release
September 15, 2010 United States Attorney's Office
Southern District of New York
Contact: (212) 637-2600
Arizona Bank That Received TARP Funds Agrees to Forfeit Profits from Processing Online Gambling Payments
Bank Also Agrees to Implement Internal Money Laundering Controls to Comply with Federal Bank Secrecy Act

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, NEIL M. BAROFSKY, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program ("SIGTARP"), and JANICE K. FEDARCYK, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced that the GOLDWATER BANK, N.A. ("GOLDWATER BANK"), located in Scottsdale, Arizona, entered into a settlement agreement requiring it to forfeit $733,804.92 to resolve civil forfeiture claims alleging that the funds are traceable to property involved in money laundering, to proceeds of an illegal online gambling business, and to property used to operate an illegal online gambling business. GOLDWATER BANK previously received funds through the Capital Purchase Program of the Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP"). As part of the settlement, GOLDWATER BANK agreed to implement anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act controls to safeguard the investment made by U.S. taxpayers in the bank against future risks.

According to the Complaint and Stipulation and Order of Settlement filed in Manhattan federal court:

Between January and May 2009, more than $13,335,248.91 in funds traceable to Pokerstars, an online gambling company based in the Isle of Man, and other offshore online gambling companies were deposited in a bank account at GOLDWATER BANK held by ALLIED WALLET, INC. These funds were traceable to several sources, including wire transfers from outside the United States by individuals and entities who knew that (a) the funds involved represented the proceeds of the illegal transmission of gambling information and the operation of an illegal gambling business, (b) the transfers were made in order to promote the carrying on of an illegal gambling business, and (c) the transfers were designed in part to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, and control of the proceeds of the illegal transmission of gambling information and operation of an illegal gambling business.

During this same time period, ALLIED WALLET, INC., paid GOLDWATER BANK for processing automated clearing house ("ACH") transactions, including payments in the form of ACH transactions to and from the bank accounts of online gamblers located in the United States who were using Pokerstars.com and other gambling websites to engage in online gambling. These ACS transactions typically involved payments from players to the gambling websites for credits used in online gambling and payments to the players for their online gambling winnings.

On August 16, 2010, ALLIED WALLET, INC., ALLIED SYSTEMS, INC., and their owner AHMAD KHAWAJA entered into a settlement agreement requiring them to forfeit the $13,335,248.91 traceable to Pokerstars and other offshore online gambling companies.

GOLDWATER BANK asserts that it did not know that the ACH transactions requested by ALLIED WALLET, INC., were being made to promote an illegal online gambling business. However, GOLDWATER BANK has agreed to forfeit $733,804.92, an amount equal to the net income that it received to process these ACH transactions. In addition, in order to safeguard the United States’ investment in the bank through TARP, GOLDWATER BANK has agreed to develop and implement internal anti-money laundering procedures, to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, and to create internal training programs and an independent audit function to ensure that its compliance is effective.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA said: "Today's forfeiture underscores that banks, particularly TARP recipients like Goldwater Bank, should not profit from the fruits of criminal conduct. The internal controls that Goldwater Bank must implement will help to ensure that such conduct will not be repeated. We will continue to work with our partners at SIGTARP and the FBI to ensure that financial institutions remain ever vigilant regarding the provenance of the funds that they process."

TARP Special Inspector General NEIL M. BAROFSKY said: "Today's charges and settlement should send a powerful message to TARP recipients that they will be held strictly accountable for any misdeeds while they stand as custodians of taxpayer dollars. SIGTARP commends the leadership of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for his continued use of both civil and criminal remedies to protect taxpayer interests."

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge JANICE K. FEDARCYK said: "Although Goldwater Bank denies guilty knowledge of its role in facilitating an illegal online gambling business, it was paid to execute transactions that were essential to the operation of this criminal enterprise. The forfeiture settlement means the bank won’t profit by providing this service. The FBI remains committed to vigorous enforcement of the laws against illegal online gambling."

Mr. BHARARA praised the investigative work of SIGTARP and the FBI in the case.

This forfeiture action is being handled by the Office’s Asset Forfeiture Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys JEFFREY ALBERTS and ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN are in charge of the prosecution.

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Shortstack Play in Low Buy In Tournaments

2010-09-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

So after a horrific run of cards in the last couple of weeks which really sapped my confidence after I ran so well in July, I took a break. I took about a week off and just reviewed some poker books and tried to watch some Cardrunners videos. I don't know if I learned anything, but it at least cleared my head.

Friday was the day before a long holiday weekend. Usually that means that my office is cleared out and I can't get a hold of any of my clients on the phone. With that in mind, I decided to play the afternoon tournament at Casino Arizona. The total buy in was $85 for 3500 chips. There were 138 players.

I have gone over the structure before in this blog, and it basically is very fast. I decided to keep track this time on how many hands I get in a level. It's a grand total of 11 hands for every 20 minute level. So waiting around for a good starting hand is not a strategy that will allow you to win the whole thing.

The one twist that I had failed to consider in the past is that after you get past the second break, they do stretch out the levels to 30 minutes. That does help things a little bit.

My main dilemna is this: When you have 10-15 BB in your stack and 1/2 of your table has 8 BB or less, should I be raising all in or just 2.5X the blinds?

Reasons for Small Raises:
a. I can fold to a reraise
b. If I raise in early position and someone reraises and there's another raise (meaning AA or KK) I can get away cheap.
c. I can make a smaller continuation bet on the flop if I get called
d. The players don't get as angry and don't spite call as fast

Reasons for Large Raises:
a. You don't get called as much. This is good, because risk-free chips are always good in this tournament
b. If you are called it is usually just one person. Raising 2.5x the blind can lead to multiple callers and big pots out of position
c. The pots are bigger when you win after getting called
d. You take away the possibility of someone bluffing you out of a pot

The best reason for large raises is b. winning more money when you are called. It is easy to go from 10BB to 21 BB when you get called with a worse hand or suck out. A 20 BB stack in the late stages of these tournaments is huge. The problem is that you will have everyone else covered and the effective stacks of your opponents will still be 10BB or fewer. There is not going to be much post flop play when everyone is this short.

Yesterday I got lucky on a couple of key hands that kept me healthy. One one hand, I open raised from the button against an opponent who had 8 BB left. I raised 3x the blind with 56s. She moved all in with Ace-King. I hit a 5 on the turn and she failed to improve. Later when I was short with 10 BB I moved all in with A6s in late position and was called by Ace-King again. Once again I hit the 6.

I really advanced through most of the tournament stealing blinds and getting lucky on those two hands. I never had Aces. I had Kings once and chopped the pot with another player who also had Kings. I did win a big pot with Ace-King when a tight player decided to go crazy with 2nd pair.

The problem was once again I was between 5 and 8 BB for most of the bubble. From about 27 players down to 15, I did barely enough to survive. I just felt like I didn't have enough chips to get people to lay down the medium strength hands. Especially the other short stacks who I thought would be looking to get it in and double up. Instead it seemed like everyone played really tight, especially the short stacks. I need to get better at figuring out who is doing this and abuse the hell out of them. The goal should be to win enough chips that when I do eventually get called, I am not all in and can survive, or get lucky and win a huge pot.

There were two hands at the final table that I wish had to play over again. They were both close decisions, but if you look at the results, it could have propelled me to a win.

The previous hand, there were two players with short stacks all in and the player to my right showed me his hand of 55 before he mucked. I thought that was a mistake because I felt sure that the first raiser had over cards and the second player thought hard before he made his move which made me think the had another Ace-X type of hand. I turned out to be right and to make matters worse for this player he would have flopped 3 of a kind.

The very next hand, there is a raise and then a reraise all in. The player who reraised all in had just lost the previous hand when his AK had been drawn out by AQ. So this might be a steam raise, but he had also been playing very tight. I look down at two 8's. I only have 6x the blind left so I should be gambling. But everyone else is short too. I decide to lay it down and wait for a spot where I can be the first one in the pot or a stronger hand. Sure enough the other two players see the flop and it has an 8. I could have tripled up!

The next hand after this, a short stack moves all in and I have A-8 offsuit. I think about calling. But I muck. Someone else calls with a low pocket pair. The flop has two Aces and I could have done it again.

I eventually went out in 5th place when I open raised my K-T and got called by Ace-Queen. I missed and collected $515. Not a bad day's work. I really think I can win one of these.

I Have A Case of the Run-Goods

2010-07-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

I started the month of July with $4,880 in the Poker Bankroll. I had made a steady climb from my low in May of $3,293. I had only taken out $136 in my plan to skim any money over $5,000 for the year of 2010 and I was getting a little discouraged. Everytime I got a little over 5k in a month, a bad session would knock me back down.

That all changed this month. As of July 30, I have $5,804 in the poker bankroll plus I have already withdrawn $800 this month. To celebrate, I bought a new set of Callaway Irons, which I am totally in love with.

The really big winnings have come from the 1-2 No Limit game at Casino Arizona. Last Friday I won an additional $420 in a session plus the $800 I won during my "Pro for 2 days" experiment after my vacation. I don't know if I am playing any differently, but I do know that I have been having good hands and the bad players keep calling my value bets without sucking out on me.

As for online play, the main highlight has been a good run at the Rush No Limit tables at Full Tilt. For the month of July, I am up $459 over 1643 hands. Obviously it takes a little luck to run good over that few hands, but I have also made an adjustment that has helped my game.

I watched a couple of videos on Cardrunners that went over strategy for Rush poker. Even though the videos were for full ring, I was surprised at how tight the instructor would play. Especially when he was out of position, he was folding hands like Ace-Queen suited. His reasoning was that Rush poker allows you to play so many hands, that why should you take the chance of putting yourself in an awkward position post flop, when you can fold and get another good hand in a matter of seconds. He would rather look at more hands per hour and play the ones with a significant edge rather than take the time to play hands where the edge is small.

Now I do not play enough volume of hands for this to make a huge difference, however I do know that one of the leaks in my game at Rush is my tendency to bluff too much and push weak hands. Using the philosophy of patience and waiting for the big edges, I have managed to avoid the bad spots and have been lucky enough to get paid off when I have made a good hand post flop. Here are a few examples:

Full Tilt, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, Rush, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

The Nutulas: $101.05 (101.1 bb)

Aedaa: $152.80 (152.8 bb)

omerat: $32.55 (32.6 bb)

busanmilk: $113.90 (113.9 bb)

Hero: $144.40 (144.4 bb)

sharpia1: $223.05 (223.1 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with K A

Aedaa calls $1, omerat raises to $5.50, busanmilk folds, Hero calls $5.50, sharpia1 folds, The Nutulas raises to $23.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $144.40 and is all-in, The Nutulas calls $77.55 and is all-in

Flop: ($209.10) K T 8 (2 players, 2 are all-in)

Turn: ($209.10) 5 (2 players, 2 are all-in)

River: ($209.10) K (2 players, 2 are all-in)

Results:

Spoiler:

$209.10 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: K T 8 5 K

Hero showed K A and won $206.10 ($105.05 net)

The Nutulas showed Q A and lost (-$101.05 net)

Since the initial raiser was a little short, I didn't see the need to put him all in for now. Plus I had the button and sometimes, these tables get very squeeze happy. If one of the blinds decides to squeeze, I am pretty confident in 4 betting all in against their range.

Sure enough someone takes the bait and they are crushed.

Full Tilt, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, Rush, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

jpfish75: $100 (100 bb)

thedudelb: $100 (100 bb)

Im Indie: $100.50 (100.5 bb)

Hero: $104.40 (104.4 bb)

WowLucky: $597.65 (597.7 bb)

AnkoXI: $104 (104 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9 9

AnkoXI folds, jpfish75 raises to $3.50, 2 folds, Hero calls $3, WowLucky folds

Flop: ($8) 7 6 9 (2 players)

Hero checks, jpfish75 checks

Turn: ($8) 7 (2 players)

Hero bets $4, jpfish75 raises to $16, Hero calls $12

River: ($40) 5 (2 players)

Hero checks, jpfish75 bets $80.50 and is all-in, Hero calls $80.50

Results:

Spoiler:

$201 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: 7 6 9 7 5

jpfish75 showed 8 8 and lost (-$100 net)

Hero showed 9 9 and won $198 ($98 net)

I have a medium pair in the small blind. There is a school of thought that says re-raising is ok here. Sometimes I do that, but lately I have been more conservative waiting for better spots.

The flop is good in that I have top set, but obviously there are draws out there and there is a remote possibility he has 10-8 for the nuts. I check, hoping to check raise, but he checks it through. Leading out is probably better here, but it's so rare someone does not c-bet in these games.

The turn is perfect as it fills me up. I bet a little small hoping to induce a raise. I get one. Now I think he may have an over pair like TT or JJ and checked the flop to keep the pot small. The river is a 5 which puts 4 to a straight out there. Any bet I make here, probably scares off most players. I'll let him try and get value or bluff since he might think I am scared. Instead of a little bluff, he over bets the pot. I snap call and fist pump as he roll over 8's for a straight to lose to my full house.

Full Tilt, $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash, Rush, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

Hero: $99.90 (99.9 bb)

deez1233: $434.10 (434.1 bb)

Sonny88: $20.15 (20.2 bb)

Im Indie: $136.90 (136.9 bb)

craigulator19: $41 (41 bb)

dbc3131: $101.55 (101.6 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K K

craigulator19 folds, dbc3131 raises to $2, Hero raises to $7, deez1233 calls $7, 2 folds, dbc3131 calls $5

Flop: ($22.50) 3 9 7 (3 players)

dbc3131 checks, Hero bets $14, deez1233 calls $14, dbc3131 calls $14

Turn: ($64.50) A (3 players)

dbc3131 bets $55, Hero folds, deez1233 raises to $110, dbc3131 calls $25.55 and is all-in

River: ($225.60) 3 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

Spoiler:

$225.60 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: 3 9 7 A 3

deez1233 showed K A and lost (-$101.55 net)

dbc3131 showed 9 9 and won $222.60 ($121.05 net)

Here is one where I lost the minimum. The min raise in front of me is a little fishy, but when the button calls my raise behind me, I don't feel too comfortable. The flop looks good, but again I get called behind and the initial raiser calls as well. I am putting someone on at least an Ace-King, possibly Aces, or a set. I don't think both players have me beat, but I would not be surprised if one did. My plan is to get to showdown as cheap as possible. Well an Ace rolls off on the turn and the initial raiser preflop now makes a big bet into two players on the turn. It's an easy fold for me.

Once I see what the cards were, I really like the bet my opponent made on the turn. If he is trying to put his opponents on a hand range, that Ace hits a lot of their range and it definitely makes it easier to get all the money in by the river. I might have bet a little less, to see if KK or QQ calls, but he got lucky in that the button had the best Ace possible and was not going away. I'm happy because I lost the minimum.

Pro Poker Experiment Day 2

2010-07-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

Kory told me they were running some juicy promotions at Fort McDowell, so I decided to make the hour long drive out there on Friday afternoon. In a new promotion, every time you get pocket Aces, you either win the pot with the best hand or if it gets cracked, they count up the pot and award you that amount.

Plus they had your normal bad beat jackpot going along with some weird computerized drawing. If they called your name, the dealer would deal two cards. If the cards paired then you won some kind of progressive jackpot.

They were also running a $30 tournament at 7:00 PM in which if you played 3 hours before, you could win $60 in bounties for every elimination.

Unfortunately, I got a little bit of a late start so I only got 2 hours of cash games in before the 7:00 PM tournament. So instead of $60 bounties, I would be eligible for $40. I believe the tournament started with around 80 players.

I couldn't get much going in the cash games and cashed out down $27. I started out strong in the tournament with some good hands early. After my strong start, we had a short stack call, and then Kory, who happened to draw my table, raised him. I looked down to see pocket Kings. The normal play is to reraise and isolate Kory, however I thought if I reraise, it will just allow the short stack to fold and I can't win his bounty. Kory was deep enough that I didn't think I could get his whole stack just yet.

So I decided to call and the small stack called the raise. The flop was all clubs and low cards. They both checked to me and I made a pot sized bet since I didn't want them to draw. The small stack called, and Kory raised all in. I call. The small stack was not on a flush draw and had an underpair. Kory had QQ with no clubs as well. It looked pretty good for me to pick up two bounties and a lot of chips, but Kory spiked a Queen on the river to suck out. That left me with a little under 5k in chips.

The very next hand, I picked up AA. I raised and got one caller in the blinds. The flop was king high. He checked, I bet, and he check raised me all in. I snap call and he has a king. I fade his outs and I am back up to my starting stack.

I started to accumulate chips and even knocked off a bounty to win my buy in plus a little extra. My table was getting steamed up because I was raising a lot of hands before the flop. Probably 70% of the time, I had a raising hand since I was definitely running good. But since no one was playing back at me, I was feeling pretty confident in that most of the players at the table would fold if I made any kind of continuation bet on the flop.

Even though we started with 10,000 in chips and the first level was 25-50, the structure was very fast. First of all the levels were only 15 minutes. Secondly, once everyone got short and there was a 3 or more way all in, the side pots became very difficult to calculate and it would take 5 minutes to play out the hand with all the crazy chip counts.

Sadly after the first hour, my table broke and I had to build up a new image. I began to go card dead and with the blinds increasing, I didn't have the flexibility to play crazy.

I tried to steal where I could, but got caught once and it left me relatively short. After that, I just sat back and watched players bust on every hand.

I managed an occasional double up but I had less than 7 BB from 35 players on. Somehow I managed to make the final two tables and the bust out craziness was continuing. Every time I would even see a remotely playable hand, someone was all in before I had the chance to push. I was getting a little frustrated, but what could I do?

At the second break we were down to 11 players and 10 were going to get paid. I think the blinds were 15k-30k with a 1k ante. I had around 50k and the blinds were going to hit me in 2 hands. I was talking with Kory, who had busted out and was playing a cash game, and we discussed strategy. We decided that my best bet was to fold and hope to make the $80 min cash. The player on my left had even less chips than me, and even though I would go through the blind first, there was a good chance that someone else may bust.

Sure enough when I folded under the gun, three other players at my table were all in. We had an elimination and then we got to the redraw for the final table. Somehow I drew the button. Meanwhile I threw out the idea of a ten way chop since the blinds were so high. Most were ok with that since it would have guaranteed $180 to everyone which was a little better than 4th place money. The chip leader wanted to save some for first place so eventually we agreed on $200 in addition for first and everyone else got $160.

I busted out in 7th when my pocket 7's went down in a 3 way pot and I cashed my $160. Plus I had managed to pick up 2 bounties for $40 each. So $240 in winnings, less $40 for the tournament and less $27 in cash game losses left me with a profit of $173.

So my 2 day experiment ended up with me winning just over $1000 and paying for my new golf clubs.

What a run!

Michele's Worst Nightmare

2010-07-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

My wife, Michele, admitted to me before I left for the casino last night that part of her hoped I would win money, but another part of her wanted me to lose so I would not get too excited about the prospects of playing poker for a living.

I am sure that I do not want to play poker for a living. I would not have the ability to affect others lives and it would not allow me to create anything tangible. However, I do like the idea of playing part-time and earning extra money.

Yesterday during my "Pro Poker Player" experiment, I won $850. Only $40 of it was from online play and the rest was from playing 1-2 No Limit at Casino Arizona.

I only squeezed in 11 sit and gos and I won 7 of them. It should have been 8, except for a mysterious hand on the bubble. There were 6 players left and 5 get paid. I picked up two aces and there was only one player who had more chips than me at the table. Everyone else was short stacked and I could probably squeak into the money if I lost the hand to them. I pushed all in and was immediately called by the chip leader. If he loses, he is crippled. The correct strategy is for him to fold every single hand, even Aces because he can comfortably fold into the money.

Since he called, I was expecting to see KK or maybe even the weird AA. Instead it was ten-eight offsuit! Before I could even process that, the flop came out with two tens! It felt really weird and like I had been scammed. Did he know what the flop was going to be? I took my tin foil hat off and came to the conclusion that it was a gigantic misclick error. My opponent was playing a lot of tables at once and could easily make that mistake. Oh well, I got pretty lucky in some other spots, so overall I can't complain.

At Casino Arizona, I ran exceptionally well. It wasn't the kind of luck where I get money in behind and then suck out. It was the kind of luck where I kept making the nuts and having idiots pay me off with hopeless hands.

I made two raises on the river against the same opponent. One time I had the King high flush for 2nd nuts, and another time I had the Broadway straight for the nuts. Each time he called me with two pair.

In my biggest hand of the night, everyone limped for $2 including me on the button with 7-9 offsuit. The small blind made it $12 and 6 players called. The flop was 5-6-8 rainbow. The raiser bet $20 and three others called! I decided to raise to $100 figuring maybe someone had a set and I want to charge them in case the board pairs. I got one caller who still had $350 left.

The turn was a 2. He checked and I bet $150. He calls again. The river is a ten. No flush and only one higher straight. He checks and I put him all in for his last $220. He is agonizing over a call. I figure he must have a set. Finally he calls and rolls over QQ. How dumb can you be? At the very least he has to put me on a set right? I raise almost every time I come into the pot, but this time I limp and call a raise behind me with a ton of people in the pot. There is no way I show up with JJ?

I kept looking for spots to get aggressively creative, but there were so many calling stations, that I just played snug and waited to get paid off. For once it worked to perfection.

The Pro Poker Player Experiment

2010-07-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a week in Wyoming visiting the inlaws. We did some camping, hiking, fly fishing and lots of hanging out in close quarters. I am ready for some "me" time. Since today is Thursday, I didn't think it made much sense to work for 2 days and then have the weekend with two more days off. So I am extending my vacation until Monday.

During my vacation, I am going to pretend that I play poker for a living. For now, I have decided that I will play online Double or Nothing Sit and Gos in the afternoon, pick up Jake from daycare around 4, have dinner with the wife and child, and then hit Casino Arizona for live poker from 8:00 to Midnight. Of course this schedule is always subject to change since I am a pro poker player and I make my own schedule.

For the live games, I plan on playing 6-12 limit hold'em or 1-2 No Limit. If I have a good run, I may jump up to the 3-5 No Limit game and try to win the big money. I decided against playing the afternoon tournaments because the rake is still way to high and if I was a pro, I would probably pass.

This may be the longest I have gone without playing a hand of poker in a few years. I am itching to get back to it.

Best Golfer and Higher Limits

2010-06-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

On Friday after work, Kory and I decided we were going to go to Casino Arizona and move up to the 6-12 Limit Hold'em game. Kory said he had a "pro" coming to join us who would refuse to play lower than 6-12. According to my bankroll rules, I should be playing at 6-12 but I have never made the move out of laziness.

In a relatively common occurence, work interfered and I was the only one at the casino. Kory had to go to a meeting. I sat down and committed myself to studying my opponents.

Very quickly I figured out the two soft spots at the table. They made the typical mistakes you see in limit poker which were calling with incorrect odds and betting hands that have no chance of winning.

Even the other players were not all that impressive. It also made me comfortable that you play the 6-12 game with $2 chips. So in chips it looks just like a 3-6 game.

I finished up $152. I didn't make any great plays. I just played solid poker and hit a couple of draws. It's nice to know that there is not a big step up in talent at the next level.

On Saturday, Bill and I played match #9 in our golf challenge. I had won the first 5 matches and Bill had won the last 3. All I needed was a tie or better in the last two matches to win the $200 bet.

Every summer, the golf course at Phoenix Country Club gets burnt out. For some reason the bermuda rough never seems to come out of the winter grass transition very well. The greens are still pretty good and most of the time, the fairway is ok too. It's just the rough is very bare and a little annoying considering how much we pay for dues.

The good news is that the course plays much easier because the ball rolls out and the ground is still soft, so even hitting off of a bare lie is not too difficult.

I won't bore everyone with the details of the round this time, but it was nice that finally we both played well at the same time. I shot 76 and Bill shot 80. I made a lot of putts and finished the last 6 holes at even par. When you shoot even par, it's hard for someone who is an 8 handicap to make up shots.

The next day, I celebrated by testing out the latest Callaway irons at the PGA Tour Superstore. I fell in love with the Diablo Forged Irons and I phoned in my order to the Country Club. According to the readouts at the store, I was hitting the 6 iron 14 yards farther than my current set. Plus the accuracy was fantastic as well. Hopefully I will get the set soon.

Satellite Sunday for WSOP Main Event

2010-06-20T13:32:00.001-07:00

Even though I will be in Wyoming during the Main Event, I figured I should at least give the satellites a shot and see if I can make a big payday. I won the first $80 satellite I entered on Poker Stars to get into their 200 player guarantee for $370.

Overall I am pretty disappointed in the satellite options that were available for the big 200 and 150 guarantees on Poker Stars and Full Tilt respectively. There were not very many scheduled tournaments available. They had the normal list of Sit and Gos but I don't have the time to register and wait around for them to fill up. Full Tilt seemed to encourage all the "gamblers" by offering 500 chip starting stacks and hyper turbos as the most preferred way to get in.

I tried an $109 satellite on Full Tilt and didn't come close, so I gave up there. All my eggs are in the Poker Stars basket

1:34 PM I raise 77 and everyone folds

1:38 PM I raise A3o in sb and the bb folds

1:40 PM It looks like Poker Stars hit their guarantee pretty easily. The minimum prize pool was $2.4 MM. They are already over $2.7 MM and there are still people registering. It's one package for every 34.3 players so it's definitely a long shot.

1:45 PM I raise AsQc in middle position. SB Dirty Cluber calls. Flop is 4s-Kh-9d. I make cbet of 100 and he calls. Turn is Qs. It goes check check. River is a 4c and Dirty Cluber bets 160 into 340 pot. I call and win. Opponent had TT. My stack is now 3,330.

1:48 PM I open steal on button with J5o because the BB has not played a hand in the tournament yet. I win 45 in blinds.

1:49 PM I call after one limper with JTo. One of the blinds comes along. Flop is Jd-Td-2d. It's checked to me, I bet 90 into 105 pot. They both fold.

1:52 PM I have JhJs in middle position. One limper and I raise to 120. MikRo17 who hasn't played a hand yet calls in position. Everyone else folds. Flop is Kd-3c-6s. I bet 150 into 315 pot. He calls. Turn is 5d. I bet 330 and he calls again. River is 2s. I check and he checks behind and wins pot with KhQc. I am down to 2,805. I probably did not need to fire the second bet there against tighty.

2:06 PM I have Ah5d on button. An early limmper wooshka1967 and it's folded to me. I raise to 120 and he calls. Flop is Qd-5c-9d. He checks and I bet
150 and he calls. Turn pairs the 9. He checks and I check. River is 3s. We both check and he shows me KQ. My luck on continuation bets has not been very good today. I am down to 2520 in chips. Blinds are 20-40.

2:09 PM I have 99 in middle position. I raise first in. Tight MikRo17 calls in position and Dirty Cluber makes it 520 from the Big Blind. I fold and MikRo17 folds. Chips at 2,400.

2:13 PM I have A8o in sb. It's folded to button who calls. I call and BB checks. Flop is 9h-Ts-2s. I check fold.

2:14 PM I have Kd3d on button. 3 limpers and I call on button. The small blind who has not raised yet in the tournament raises to 120. He gets 2 callers plus me. The flop is 9h-3s-7c. The raiser checks and middle player bets 80 into a pot of 560. I call and raiser calls. Turn is a Queen and everyone checks. River is a Jack and they check to me. I bet 480 figuring the raiser has AK and middle guy has a weak 9. He thinks for a while and folds.

2:17 PM I call a raise with 55. Flop is all over cards and I fold to a bet.

2:19 PM I pick up AKo. A player who has not raised in 43 hands raises and I three bet him. He folds and I pick up small pot. Chips at 2980.

2:22 PM I have JdJs utg. I min raise to 80 and scanlobj calls. Flop is 6s-3h-Ah. I check and he checks. Turn is As. Now I bet 160 into a 220 pot and he calls. Does he have a flush draw or a medium pocket pair? The river is the Ks. I check and he bets 340. I call hoping he's bluffing or betting a small pair. He rolls over AQ. Well played. I'm down to 2345.

2:26 PM. Registration is still open and prize pool is over $3 MM. Thats at least 250 seats!

2:30 PM. I raise AhJd in early position. wooshka1967 reraises the minimum to 250. I call and hate it. Flop is Ac-Qh-4c. I bet 300 into 575 pot. He calls and only has 735 left. The turn is 2d. I don't know what to do. I bet enough to put him all in and he calls quickly. I am sure he will turn up Ace-King or Ace-Queen. He shows K-T. Huh? I fade the 4 outs and chip up to 3630.

2:32 PM. I have AKo on button. Whatth3hell raises to 400 only leaving 1,165. That's 8x the blind. I am thinking about what to do and I time out. The big blind goes all in and Whatth3hell calls. The flop is K-T-8. Whatth3hell had TT and the big blind had AcQc. I lucked out that I didn't play that hand.

2:35 PM. I raise 22 and get reraised and have to let it go.

2:45 PM AsQc on button. Whatth3hell limps for 60. I raise to 180 and TheFordGuy calls in sb and Whatth3hell folds. Flop is Ad-6h-8h. Blind checks and I bet. He folds.

2:46 PM Very next hand pick up QQ. Bob&Tomshow raises utg to 180. Whatth3hell calls. I 3bet to 600. First raiser folds and Whatth3hell calls. Flop is 3d-2c-7s. He checks and I bet 960 into a 1,470 pot and he folds. I am up to 4,560.

2:47 PM I have AdQd in early position. I raise to 180 and scanlobj reraises to 360. He has not 3 bet yet in the tournament. I call with good odds. Flop is 6s-2s-Jc. I check fold. Down to 4,200.

2:52 PM Final prize pool numbers. $3,034,150 in pool. 252 entries. 253-279th pay $370 and 280th place pays $160. 8669 entries. There are 6579 players left. Wow that is a long way to go.

3:07 PM In other betting news, my last chance at winning any money in the US Open golf tournament is being flushed down the drain by the collapse of Dustin Johnson. He made Triple Bogey, then Double Bogey, and just hit his tee shot on 4 off a cliff into the ocean. I guess I'll need to win the poker tournament.

3:10 PM I pick up AKo in late position. Raise first in and win the blinds. 4,080 in chips.

3:11 PM I raise Ac6c first in to 240. MikRo17 reraises all in for 2100 and I fold.

3:16 PM. nvasaydi raises in middle position. It's folded to me in blinds and I call with 55. Flop is J-6-3. I lead out for 300 and he raises to 600. I fold. Down to 3,250.

3:20 PM I raise Q3o because both of the blinds are the tightest players at the table. It almost works but the BB iacog4 calls. Flop is 6d-Jh-Jd. I make a c-bet and he folds. 3,630 in chips.

3:23 PM I have 44 in BB. The aforementioned tight player iacog4 tries to steal my blind. I debate reraising but just call. Flop is 7s-Jd-7d. I check and he bets 1/2 the pot. I call. Turn is a Ts and goes check check. River is 6d. I decide to bluff/blocking bet 700 and he folds. Up to 4,350 now in chips.

3:29 PM Raise the tight guys again and win the blinds. Next hand I have 77 utg and min raise. Get 2 callers and flop is 8-9-T. It's checked around. The turn is another T putting two flush draws out there. Whatth3hell bets 100 into 700 pot and I fold. Why fuck around on that scary board?

3:33 PM I get KK and Whatth3hell raises in front to 360. I make it 1080 and he calls. An Ace flops and he overbets the pot of 2,475 by going all in for 4,755 (I only have 2,965 so it's not that bad of an overbet) I want to call, but I force myself to fold since I still have plenty of play left. Down to 2,965 in chips.

3:45 PM Nothing playable and have blinded down to 2620. Blinds going to 75-150 with 20 ante. Only 4600 players left to go through.

3:49 PM QdQh under the gun. I raise to 450. The big stack, nvasaydie calls and floxizz the second tightest player at the table goes all in for 2,960. I call and nvasaydie folds. I'm up against AdKh. The flop is 7d-2d-5d, the turn is 3d and I'm drawing dead. I go to the couch to watch the US Open after finishing in 4,352nd place. Meh.

Introducing Kory to 2-250 Spread Limit

2010-06-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday after work, I convinced Kory to come over to the $1-$2 blind, max bet $250 table at Casino Arizona. Kory has usually played the 3-6 or 4-8 limit tables and done fairly well. He's had some bad experiences in Las Vegas at the 1-2 No Limit tables so he was apprehensive.

I felt bad when he lost his $80 stack on Thursday after check raising all in on a J-8-X board. The donkey called his raise with Q-9 for the inside straight draw and an over card. He hit the straight and Kory went home a loser.

Apparently Kory went back Friday night and had more atrocious luck. Kory has the same personality trait as me, in that if he loses, he becomes more determined to figure the game out and try and come back with a win.

So for our outing on Saturday night, he had called me earlier in the day and said he was ready to try again.

I arrived at the casino a little after 7:00 PM and was sat right away. To my left was an old war vet in a wheel chair with only one leg. To his left was another man in his 50's or 60's with a tattoo on his arm proclaiming that he was the Arizona Gold Gloves Boxing Champion 5 different times.

I was a few spots away from the Big Blind when I sat down, so I took a hand right away. I squeezed out KQ offsuit and put in a $10 raise. The Golden Gloves guy called and then a woman in the Small Blind, reraised me to $22. Now reraises in this game are rare, especially from a woman who I did not initially make out to be a regular player. Since it was so cheap, I decided to call the $12 and the player behind me called as well.

The flop was K-7-6 with two diamonds. The woman checked. So now I think maybe she has QQ and I can take the pot away. I bet $40. Golden Gloves guy raises me to $80 and the woman folds. This is why I hate getting a good hand early in a session. I have no idea how this guy plays and whether he's capable of making a move or if he has K-J and thinks it's the nuts. I decide that I don't want to put my whole $200 in the pot, so I fold. Down $80 in the first 5 minutes.

About 10 minutes later, I get the rest of my $120 in the middle with the second nut straight. There was 4 to a straight on the board and I didn't think the nut straight was out there since they would have had to call a big bet on the flop with a gut shot. Much to my chagrin, there were two other players who called my bet and they both had the same straight.

Kory finally was moved to my table just in time for the biggest cash game bluff I have pulled off in quite a while. A young man with a wool beanie and mirrored sun glasses had sat down not long after I had arrived. He looked like someone who might take the game seriously but not play too well. He was in early position and raised to $7. It was folded to me on the button and I called with the 6-7 of diamonds.

The flop was 2-3-5 with one diamond. The young guy led out for $10 and I called. I figured the flop looks pretty innocent and he could be betting with anything. Plus I have a gutshot and backdoor flush draw, so maybe I can win a big pot.

The turn was a black 6. Now I have top pair with a crappy kicker. My opponent checks. I bet $40 to try and take the pot away. The kid did not look happy when I called the flop, and he really looked like he struggled to find the call on the turn. I could have played conservative and try to get to show down if he had Ace-King but I don't know in the long run if one way is better than the other.

The river paired the 3. He checks again, and now I put the remainder of my chips in the middle which was $110. Once he struggled with the call on the turn and checked the river, I was pretty sure he had a small pocket pair like 77,88,99. The board was pretty scary since there was a possible straight, full house, or even just an over pair to his in my range. He looked pretty sick to his stomach when I made the bet. He never really tried to get a read on me, he just kept looking at the board and his hand for about 3 minutes.

Kory asked me if there was a time limit to making a decision. I said, "I could call the clock, but I think it's pretty rude". The dealer then to my dismay said, "You're on the clock" to the other player. I told the dealer that I didn't want the clock called, but she started telling the other player that he had taken 3 minutes and it was time to make a decision. I think the dealer was a little impatient because another dealer was behind her ready to push her out of her down. Anyways, he finally called with his pocket 8's and I lost my first buy in.

Kory was shocked that I didn't have a full house. The rest of the table was pretty stunned as well. I told my opponent "good call" and reached in my money clip for another $200. Surprisingly I was not too upset about losing the hand. I was happy with myself for making a good read on his cards and following my instinct. I was truly playing the man and not the cards. I definitely think my bluff was a positive Expected Value move, it just didn't work this one time.

In the mean time, I was starting to get a read on the rest of the table and realizing that if I hit a decent hand, I could probably take all of them down because they tended to over value, medium strength hands.

I went on a decent run and built my $200 back up to around $370 when I got the hand of the night. A quiet man with a baseball cap and an ipod raised to $15 in early position. I had not seen him raise a pot yet, and he seemed to be very tight. It was folded to me on the button and I looked down at QQ. Normally I would reraise, but I genuinely thought he might have AA or KK so I just called. The one legged vet called as well in the small blind.

The flop was a beautiful K-Q-8 with two diamonds. I had the Queen of diamonds. The tight player bet $30. I raised to $100 hoping to charge the guy on my left if he had some kind of draw. Plus if the first player has AA, he's probably coming along. Well the vet on my left called and the tight player folded.

The turn was a 9 of hearts. I bet $250 which only left me with about $40 left. He called again quickly. Now I'm worried that he got there with J-T or something silly. The river was a low card. I checked and he checked. He said, "I have Kings". As I rolled over my set of Queens I asked, "Do you have one in your hand or two?" He quickly flashed the K-T and I won a monster pot.

The vet was pissed. Apparently he had lost a good bit of money yesterday and was very proud of himself that he had won most of it back Saturday evening, until I took it all away from him. What a horrible call he made!

Getting back to Kory, he had been nursing his small stack for over an hour. Unfortunately I took some of his money on a couple of unlucky hands for him. The first one we both flopped a flush, but mine was higher. Another hand, I hit a third Jack on the river when he and another guy had both paired their Ace on the flop.

At one point I was up over $400. Then I lost a pot to another woman when she turned a straight against my JJ with a 6-7. I got away from it on the river when she raised. I was thinking about packing it in and that pretty much convinced me it was time to go.

As I was racking up my chips, I saw Kory finally get paid off when he flopped a set of Aces and the other player had turned a set of 6's. That got him back up over $120 in his stack.

I left a $312 winner and started driving home. About 15 minutes into my drive, Kory called to tell me that he had made a heroic comeback and had turned his little stack into $400 in 10 minutes. Then the table grumbled when he racked up and left even for the night. Congrats to Kory. He says he wants to keep playing the bigger game, so I hope he keeps running well.

It Feels Good To Win

2010-05-23T04:36:00.000-07:00

Since my last post I had a tremendously bad session at 5-500 Spread Limit Hold'em at the Casino Arizona followed by a fun winning streak which has won that money back and more.

The 5-500 game is a little out of my bankroll league. I am relatively comfortable with the stakes, but when the poker bankroll is between $4,000 and $5,000 I'm pretty sure that variance can raise it's ugly head and wipe me out if I played regularly. I think you need about $10,000 to play that game on a regular basis.

Occasionally I like to take a shot at it when I feel like playing "high". My bad session was marked by two hands, both against the same guy. The first one was when I ran my Ace-King into his two Kings and all the money got in preflop. My opponent had started the hand with less than $200 so I don't think I'll do too bad getting Ace-King all in for 40 BB's in most games.

The second hand, I lost my remaining $300 when we both flopped 3 of a kind but he had me out kicked by one. In a cash game, when you are all in, you are not required to turn over your cards like you are in a tournament. There are many times when players just wait for the cards to run out and then muck after they see they are a loser. However, you do need to show your cards to collect the pot if you are a winner. So it makes no sense to wait, if you have the best hand after your opponent has turned over his cards.

We got all our money in on the turn and I flipped over my hand. My opponent saw my cards and did not look happy. In fact the player next to me commented on that fact and said, "you must be good." The river card was drawn and then he slow rolled me by turning over his hand at the end. So not only was I felted but I was insulted by the slow roll.

This session really depressed me because I was still trying to recover from the $800 plus downswing from the last Las Vegas trip.

After a week or so of laying low, I decided to try the big game again. It was a Saturday night after a two day golf tournament in which I had played 54 holes and drank a decent amount of beer.

The line up in this game was much more to my liking. They were mostly loose passive preflop and tight after the flop. I was not getting many cards at the beginning, but I would steal an occasional pot to keep my stack at it's starting level of $300.

Then I picked up good old Ace-King in the small blind. There were a couple of calls and then I raised to $25. Joel, a middle aged man who looked like he could be a part of the Russian mob, was the only caller. I have seen Joel at the tables before, so I assumed he at least knew what he was doing. The flop was ragged and I fired a $35 bet hoping to take it down. Joel calls. The turn doesn't look like it helps anyone and I bet $75 this time. Joel calls again and quickly.

Now I'm pretty sure he must have at least a pair. Not many players in these games will call two bets with your standard draws. The river misses me again and I am determined not to put another chip in the pot so I check. Joel checks as well and says, "I missed". I roll over my Ace high and drag a nice pot. So not only do I win a decent pot, but I get to advertise that I will fire two bullets on a bluff if I think someone is weak.

The very next hand, Joel is under the gun and decides to straddle to $10. I am now on the button. Everyone folds to me and I look down at AJo. I raise to $30 and Joel calls. The flop is a beautiful A-J-2 rainbow.

Joel checks to me and the hand is playing out exactly like the last one. I bet $30. Joel says, "Did you hit something this time" sarcastically and calls. The turn is a 7. He checks and I bet $60 which he calls again.

The river is a 9. Joel checks for a 3rd time and I decide to try and get some value. I bet $100 leaving me $140 behind. Joel still has me covered. Joel immediately moves all in. A check raise on the river in these games is very rare and almost never a bluff. I thought about it for a while and the problem was that he could literally have any two cards because he straddled. It's probably not the best reason to call, but I rationalized that I just had too much money invested in the pot and going broke with top two pair in this situation would not weigh on my conscious. I called. Joel rolled over 9-2 for a rivered two pair which he thought was good. I quickly showed my A-J and watched his mood turn from joy to anger in a millisecond. He stormed off to go to the ATM while I raked in a huge pot.

It is very rare when you establish your image at the poker table against one opponent and the very next hand, you get to use that image against them. It is a beautiful thing when it happens.

I ended up $540 for the night which erased my earlier loss. Since then I have been on quite a roll.

I have played 3-6 limit at the casino twice and won $110 and $60. I have been playing .25-.50 PLO online and finally found a level with lots of bad players so I can now win. I played a quick session of Rush .50-$1 No Limit and won $80. Plus I have found a new fertile hunting ground, the Rush $12 multi table Sit and Gos.

These start with 150 players and it is played in the Rush format until the final table. Rush tables allow you to fold your hand before it is even your turn to act and then the computer takes you to a brand new table and a new hand almost instantaneously. Even though the structure is a turbo, you can see many more hands per level in this format, than a standard Sit and Go.

Since you can see more hands, it would make sense to be patient and wait for good hands. The great part is that most of the players have not figured this out. They see "Turbo" and think they have to make crazy plays and double up as soon as possible. So far this has allowed me to get paid off quite frequently on my good hands.

So far I have played 9 of these and cashed in 3. The last one was my best where I managed a 4th place for $150. The other two were min cashs. We'll see if my strategy pans out or if I just happen to be running good.

On the golf front, I have continued my winning ways. I beat Bill in our 4th match out at Whirlwind 77-80 to take a 4-0 lead. I was one under par after the front nine and started to think about whether I could shoot par for the first time. That is not the proper mindset, plus I had a couple of bad breaks on the back nine, but I was very happy with how I played.

Currently I am up 13 strokes on the cumulative score bet for $65 plus the $200 overall bet. I offered him a buy out of $250 bet he told me to go fuck myself so I guess I will just have to smash him when we play today.

Best Weekend of the Year?!

2010-04-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the first qualifying round for the Club Championship at the Country Club. Bill managed to get a hall pass to try and qualify as well, so we arranged with the Pro shop to play together and take care of match #4. I am currently ahead 3 - 0 and feeling very confident.

Bill went through the trouble to actually take a lesson on Thursday to fix his broken swing. He called me after his session on the range very excited and told me that I should be very worried. I'll let him in on a little secret. I wasn't very worried.

Golf is a fickle game. Sometimes a new swing thought or slight adjustment can make all the difference. Most of the time a lesson tends to mess with your head. You hit it good on the range in front of the pro, but the first time on the course you tend to revert to your old ways because you have not ingrained the new move yet. Since Bill rarely practices, I was pretty sure whatever the pro was going to tell him, was not going to stick with him for very long. Especially in a pressure situation like the Club Championship Qualifying.

We both started off well with pars on the first hole. I was in great position to look at birdie as I had a wedge in my hand for the third shot, but I bladed it and had a really tough putt from the back of the green all the way to the front. I made a 12 footer for par, which was the first of many great par saves.

Bill's demise began on the second hole when what looked like a good shot on the short par 3, managed to find the water. I hit the green and two putted for par, while Bill made 5.

I don't remember too much about Bill's play on #3, #4, or #5 except that they weren't pars. I made a bogey on 3. On #4 I pushed my drive way right and had to lay up 40 yards short of the green. I hit a great wedge shot to 4 feet and made my par.

On #5, I laid up short of the left fairway bunker with a 5 wood and then hit a great pitching wedge that almost rolled in. I had 15 feet left for birdie and just missed it for an easy par.

#6 is a tough par 4 and this is where Bill really fell apart. I hit another drive way right and Bill followed me over even farther to the right. I had to lay up by hitting a wedge over the trees. Bill was under a tree where he could not make a full swing. He was near the tee box for hole #5 and there were players waiting to hit their tee shots. There was an opening for him to hit the ball to the left and get back into the fairway. Bill was frustrated and a little embarrassed to be where he was in front of these other players. He never looked left. He couldn't go at the pin, because there were trees in the way. Instead he decided to punch out to the right which was stupid because he was still going to have all kinds of tree issues.

After punching out, he took a full swing on his third shot and hit a tree. His 4th shot hit the green and two putted for another 6.

Bill was starting to think about quitting because we were getting Masters updates and his boy, Phil Mickelson was in the hunt. I hit a good drive on the long par 5. Bill yanked his drive left into the trees. We heard it hit the trees but we couldn't see where it bounced off to. Our third playing partner, Chris, said he saw a ball straight down and that's where we started our search. We found a Titliest ball right away and Bill hit a good recovery shot, between the trees that was rolling down the fairway but then in an indication of how his day was going, it just barely trickled into the fairway bunker.

As Bill was getting ready to hit his third shot, Rob came over from the 6th fairway and asked if Bill had hit his ball. Sure enough, Bill looked down at the ball in the bunker and recognized that he had made a huge blunder. Bill was a little mad at Chris for claiming he had found Bill's ball. I have always told Bill that he should make some kind of mark on his ball to identify it, but he has always refused to do it and this is probably the third time I have seen him hit the wrong ball.

Meanwhile, I had hit a good 3 wood down the fairway and had 100 yards to the hole. I hit a solid wedge but it went over the pin and landed 35 feet from the hole. I had a really tough putt that would have been easy to putt right off the front of the green. I hit a pretty good lag putt but still left myself about 5 feet for par. I made the tough putt and stood 2 over par after 7 holes. Bill carded a 9 after the two shot penalty and was 12 over par after 7 holes. He handed me his score card, wished me good luck and walked back into the club house to watch the rest of the Masters.

Part of our bet included a gross score portion where the loser would pay the winner $5 per stroke for every stroke they were behind in gross total for the series. I mentioned this to Bill before he quit and he said to come up with something fair for the round and he would pay it.

I went on to card a 3 over 39 on the front nine. I hit a great 5 iron on #10 to reach the green in two. I made a tough two putt and parred the second hardest hole on the course.

On #11 I was on the green in 2 shots but had a 30 foot putt up the hill for birdie. I gave it a pretty good rap since it was up hill. The line looked good from the beginning but the ball wasn't slowing down. It hit the back of the cup at a good speed and managed to stay in the hole for birdie!

On #12 I barely cleared the lake on the right, but I was under the big tree just beyond the hazard. I had to hit a pitching wedge under the first tree and over the second tree in front of the green. I hit a great shot that ended up 4 feet from the hole. I made that putt and suddenly I had birdied two holes in a row.

The next hole is the start of our club's Amen corner. It's a long 195 yard par 3 with a big lake on the right of the green. I over swung on my hybrid and pulled my shot to the left. It hit a small pine tree 20 yards short of the green and landed underneath the tree. The pin was so close to the front of the green that I did not want to take the chance of trying to hit a high lob shot and coming up short. Instead I hit an 8 iron chip shot that ran up the front of the green and 20 feet past the hole. Now I faced a severe downhill left to right putt for par. I was just trying to nudge it up close and two putt, but my putt rolled past the hole and on to the fringe in front of the green 10 feet past the hole. I missed the combacker for bogey and suddenly erased the two shots I had made up with the birdies.

I thought I had righted the ship when I hit a decent drive on 14 and managed to keep the ball off of Osborn and out of the equipment yard. The problem was that I had tree issues on the right hand side. I tried to hit a 3 metal punch shot low under the trees. Instead my club got under the ball and my shot went too high and into the tree. It made it through the tree but I still had another tree to hit under for my 3rd shot. This time I hit a good punch shot with my 8 iron from 110 yards. It landed in front of the green and bounded through and over the back. Now I had to hit a flop shot to try and get it close. I hit a pretty good one, but I was still 15 feet away for bogey. The cup was cut in the side of a hill so even though I hit a good putt, it rolled away from the hole and left me 4 feet for double bogey. I shakily hit that one in and now I really needed something good to happen.

#15 was the last hole of Amen corner and it was 185 yards into the wind over water. I tried to hit my hybrid again and pulled it left again. This spot is usually dead, because if you go past the green, you have to hit a high shot over a bunker to a green that slopes away from you and a lake on the other side of the green. Now I had a tree directly in my line to the pin, so I was looking for a way to advance my ball closer to the green so I could have a chance at a bogey 4. I decided my best option was to punch out to the right in the fairway short of the hole. This would leave me a 40 yard shot where I would not have to worry about putting the ball in the water and bringing a 6 into play.

I hit a good punch and hit a great wedge shot to 5 feet. I made the putt for 4 and actually felt good about it.

My game came together for a brief moment on 16 as I hit my second shot to the short right pin to 4 feet. Even though my birdie putt was short, it was very down hill and if it was to go more than a foot past the hole, there was a good chance it may roll clear off the green. Somehow I managed to leave this putt 1 inch short. So I was disappointed, but also relieved that at least I finally made a stress free par.

I bogeyed 17 and then played 18 about as flawlessly as I could play it. I had 108 yards to the green for my 3rd shot on the par 5. The pin was tucked to the right hugging the lake. I made a great swing and the ball landed hole high, 20 feet left of the pin. I made a good lag putt and tapped in for a 78. This was the first time I had broken 80 in a two or three months and it was in a pressure situation from the back tees. I was really proud of myself.

Sunday, I spent the afternoon watching the final round of the Masters. I was happy for Phil Mickelson to win. He made some amazing shots to save par and his 2nd shot on 13 from out of the woods was one of the best shots the Masters has ever seen.

Mickelson winning, cost me $75 in my bet with Bill. I had Anthony Kim and Tiger Woods on my team, but Bill had Mickelson and Lee Westwood. Bill called and offered that instead of paying him $75, that I forgive all his strokes in our golf match and call it even. Since I was going to offer him $50 as the buy out amount, I guess that means I made $25.

Then tonight, I had the pleasure of taking in a Suns game. It was a great game that went down to the wire until the Suns got hot from the 3 point line and pulled away.

I can't think of many things I would rather do on a weekend then what I did in the past 48 hours.

Why Can't I Figure Out PLO?

2010-03-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

My numbers are horrible. Every time I play PLO I end up losing 3-4 buy ins. Luckily I seem to be playing well at No Limit Hold'em and the Double or Nothing Sit and Gos.

I have experimented in my last two sessions with playing a much more passive game. I gave up reraising preflop and I try to only raise when first in and on the button or cut-off. This seems to be working better. I am losing less which I guess is an improvement but it's still not heading in the right direction.

I know a big leak in my game is calling off too much on the river. I think the key is to realize that I may fold an occasional winner, but I will make up for it with the times that I can bluff others on the river when a scare card comes.

The other leak is that I am probably bluffing too often on the flop and turn. I tend to think that I have a weak hand and the board looks innocent so why not fire at it. Then when my opponent just calls, it feels weak and I feel compelled to bet again on the turn. I really think I need to play more of an ABC type game where I bet when I have a good hand, and check much more often when I need more cards to improve.

I have decided to try and outline the PLO book by William Jockusch so I can grasp all the concepts. I definitely still have a lot to learn. It amazes me that a game like this can get so popular so fast, and be so hard to play well.

I take a 2-0 lead against Billy

2010-03-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

Golf Match #2 with Bill Watson

The weather forecast said the rain would stop by 7:00 AM on Sunday morning. Since Bill and I were scheduled to play at 10:30 AM, I thought we would be fine. Last weekend, we were supposed to play our second match, but a torrential down pour after 7 holes caused us to pack it in. In the ensuing 7 days, the weather had been picture perfect with highs in the mid 70’s.

This all changed on Saturday night, when the next storm from California hit our desert state. It was a light rain, but it had been going non-stop since midnight. At 9:30 AM I called Bill and said that I did not want to play in the rain again. There are 350 days a year when it is sunny in Arizona and there is no reason to play when the weather is crappy.

Bill pleaded with me to drive to the club and make a “game time” decision. His whole week had been devoted to carving out time so he could play on Sunday and he wasn’t about to let it go just yet. I finally caved and said I would drive down to the club. If it was still raining, I would just have an early lunch.

Sure enough, I got to the club and the rain had stopped. The clouds were still there, but there was no one on the course and it looked like we could play after all.

Bill and I decided not to warm up because we wanted to take advantage of all the good weather we could. We started on the back nine again, because one two-some had jumped ahead of us on the first tee and I did not want to play behind them for the whole round.

I have been having a lot of trouble with 4 foot putts lately and I faced one on the very first hole. Since I did not have any warm up and I was shivering in the 50 degree weather, I missed my first one of the day and took a double bogey six. Bill managed to scrape out a 5.

On #11 (our second hole) I hit 5 iron from the middle of the fairway. I hooked my shot a little left and instead of nestling comfortably in the bunker, it skipped over the bunker and nearly went out of bounds. I had to hit a half pitch over a bunker, with little green to work with and the fence behind me, restricting my swing. I somehow managed to clear the bunker and leave myself 20 feet from the pin on the fringe of the green. Bill had hit his drive way to the right and struggled to make a 6. I two putted for a 5 and we were even again.

#12 Was a comedy of errors. Bill stone cold topped his drive and it went 20 yards. Then he hit his two iron into the lake on the right. Meanwhile I hit a great drive and had a 52 degree wedge in my hand from 100 yards away. I hit a hook into the left hand bunker which plugged. I made a really good shot out of the bunker in that it almost stayed on the green. I two putted for bogey. Bill finally got up to the green and one putted for a 6.

I picked up another stroke on #13 and 3 strokes on #14 when Bill hit his drive out of bounds.

On #15 I pushed my 8 iron to the right. It cleared the lake but it did not make it far enough to get on the green. You would think with all the rain that the grass would be sticky, but it rolled 7 feet back and into the lake. After the penalty and a bad pitch, I managed to miss another short putt and carded a 6. Bill made a par and we were even again. Did I mention that we played terrible?

I managed to eke out a one stroke lead after 9 holes. I missed another short putt on #2 to lose my lead. I finally started to play some decent golf and went 2 over par for the next 4 holes while Bill went 5 over par. Now I have a 3 stroke lead with 4 to play.

From the beginning I was determined to beat Bill by a lot for making me come out in the rain. Bill might get some joy out of just being out of the house even if it’s in the rain, but I don’t. I’d much rather play in the sunshine. I wanted to make Bill pay for convincing me to come out and since each stroke I beat him by was an extra $5, I thought this was a chance to pad my lead.

Instead I missed a short putt on #7 and another one on #8 to make the match interesting once again. Luckily Bill did not capitalize on the first missed putt so I still had a two stroke lead. Bill hit his best drive of the day and his approach shot looked like it was going to be really good. Lucky for me, the wind caught a hold of it and he came up just short of the green. I had pulled my drive left and had left my 200 yard approach shot short and to the right of the green. I had a tough pitch shot over a bunker to a pin that was close to the edge of the green. I was proud of myself for making a good aggressive shot and I had a real chance to save par. Meanwhile Bill hit his putt, but he missed it to the right. I managed to get in the hole in two putts to win by one.

I now lead our match 2-0. Bill has decided that he needs a lesson or some time on the range before he comes back for more pain. I know that I need to spend a lot of time on the putting green. Until then, I will continue to trash talk like I have already one.

The Golf Challenge Starts for 2010

2010-02-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

My friend Bill has been troubled by a bad back for the last few months. He has had a series of shots, x-rays, mri's, and even a bone scan to try and figure out what is wrong. Finally they have settled on a diagnosis of arthritis in his Sacro Iliac Joint. Bottom line is that playing golf will not make it worse, so Bill is going to have to figure out a way to manage the pain.

He started doing his physical therapy exercises every day for the last two weeks and it started to feel better. So good in fact that he was ready to get out on the golf course again.

I have been enrolled in the Club's Match Play Championship. It is a handicapped event and I won my first match a couple of weeks ago. My next match was against Zane who happened to knock me out of this very tournament last year.

I played my match with Zane last Saturday. Bill was ready to come out and play as well. I told Bill that I did not want to start our series at the same time as I was playing Zane because that would be too much to think about on the course. Bill felt pretty good on the range and asked me to reconsider. I tried to be nice and give him a practice round, but I figured I might as well take advantage of his rustiness.

We started on the back nine of Phoenix Country Club which is definitely the harder of the two nines. We all played horrible on our first 9 holes. Zane is an 8 handicap, I am a 9, and Bill is a 7. We shot 46, 45, and 44 respectively. I was hitting the ball decently but making silly mental errors and my putting was atrocious.

Somehow I was still one up on Zane making the turn and only one stroke behind Bill. My bad play continued on holes #1,2, and 3 which I played in 3 over par. Somehow Zane did not make up any ground and Bill double bogeyed #3 which now gave me a one stroke lead.

The momentum of the round changed on #4. I hit a solid drive and had a small dilemna on my second shot. The pin was back right and anything over the green makes bogey or worse for sure. I was in between clubs and decided to go with the shorter one. As is usually the case when you go with the short club, you don't hit it pure and my shot barely made it to the front of the green. Now I have a long 45 foot putt over a hill in the middle of the green. Zane is in birdie range, and Bill is in the middle of the green.

I hit my putt on a good line but too firmly and it rolled past the pin and 10 feet by and just off the green. I was still away. I decided to use the putter again and this time I got lucky and made the putt for a miracle par! Zane missed his birdie putt and made par as did Bill.

For the next 5 holes I played great golf and played them in one under par with two birdies. The last birdie came on #9 when I hit the pin from the fairway and the ball stopped 2 feet from the pin. Bill continued to play badly and played the next 5 holes in 5 over par. I closed Zane out 2 up with one to play after I sank a 30 footer on #8 (our 17th hole) for par.

While Bill and I were playing, we trying to decide on what the bet shouuld be over our 10 round challenge. Last year I lost $500. This year we pretty much decided to play for pride with the added wrinkle that we would keep track of our cumulative scores. For every stroke that I win by, he would owe me $5. Vice versa is also true. So our first round was 83 for me and 90 for Bill so I am up $35.

As for poker, I have been on a hot streak of late. The account is up to $5,200 due to a couple of good runs on Full Tilt's Rush Poker and a 5 for 5 set last night on Pokerstars Double or Nothing Sit and Go's.

Today is President's Day and a holiday for me. My Mom and Dad are coming over to watch Jake and I am going to try my luck at the afternoon tournament at Casino Arizona. We'll see how long I can ride this streak.

New Bankroll Management for 2010

2010-02-05T19:56:00.000-08:00

I made a new goal for myself in 2010.

In the past I have been trying to win money to move up in stakes. I guess eventually I thought I would get to a level where the income would be useful and I would feel like a bit of a bigshot.

Well I am giving up on that goal for at least a year. I added a couple hundred dollars to the bankroll to top it out at $5,000. For 2010, every month I will add up the bankroll and if it is above $5,000, I will take out the additional money and spend it on fun things.

I came to this decision over a long period of time. It comes down to a few reasons. One is that if I never take money out of the site, I might as well be playing with fake money. Secondly, the $5,000 stake is large enough to comfortably play .50-1 PLO and $1-$2 No Limit. I have some trouble being a profitable player at these levels, let alone anything higher. Until the UIGEA gets over turned, I think the games are going to continue to get more difficult and it will be tough for me to improve my game fast enough to move up in stakes. The third reason is that I would like to update my iron set of golf clubs including my wedges. I bought my Callaway X-16's with my poker winnings from Party Poker in 2004 and I would like to see if I could pull it off again.

January was my first month under the new plan. It did not go well as I ended the month down a little over $200. The majority of the losing came at PLO as I have been playing like ass over the last 2 weeks.

I am reading the new book from William Jockush on PLO and I am really having a hard time implementing the ideas. Plus I keep getting the feeling that I am getting pushed out of my medium strength hands, and every time I pick up the nuts I never seem to get any action.

I may just go back to grinding away at the Double or Nothing SNG's at Poker Stars again to inflate my cash balance.

Luck Can Only Take You So Far

2009-12-31T19:08:00.000-08:00

I had a free Wednesday night since I usually play Tennis, but our USTA team has a vacation due to the holiday season. My friend Jeff (see www.dreamdealers.com) has been hosting a weekly tournament at his house for a $40 buy in. I finally decided to make an appearance knowing I could also catch the U of A vs. Nebraska football game at the Holiday Bowl.

The football game started at 6:00 PM while the tournament was not starting until 7:00. This gave me some time to get there early and watch my beloved Wildcats fall behind by a touchdown only 71 seconds into the game after an interception was run back to the 5 yard line. The rest of the game went downhill from there and I was glad to have a poker game to distract me.

We started the game with eight players and 10,000 chips. The starting blinds were 100-200 and the levels were going up every 20 minutes. Jeff was nice enough to provide us with one of his dealers, the lovely and talented Heidi. This helped move the game along and let the players focus on their cards instead of shuffling and dealing.

I’m pretty sure I did not see a flop for the first level as my cards were pretty crappy. Early in the second level I picked up K9o in late position. There was a limper to me and I decided I should play a hand and try to pick up some chips. I raised and got an additional caller in the big blind. The flop missed me, but they checked to me and I bet half the pot. They folded pretty quickly and at least I was back up to my starting stack.

The next two levels went by with me winning an occasional small pot and staying right around 10,000 in chips. The fourth level was 400-800 and it was the last level for rebuys. The next level would be 500-1000. During this level a couple of late arrivals showed up and bought in so now we had 10 players at the table. With two minutes to go in the level, I open raised AsQs to 2,400 in the hi-jack. One of the new players moved his 10k all in. From the brief comments I had heard from the other players, this player had the reputation of being an “action player” and could very well be trying to double up quick during the final stage of the rebuy level. An older gentleman who had been playing somewhat solid called his bet. Here is where the rebuy screws up your thinking sometimes. I did not give the caller too much credit because I figure he knows the other guy is gambling. Plus he only had about 12,000 in chips so he may be trying to make a quick score. I see a chance to triple up if I get lucky. I raise all in.

To my surprise, I was waaay behind. The “action player” had AK and the older gentleman had AA. I can’t get much more behind than that. The flop was K-X-X. The turn was a Jack, and before anyone noticed except for me, the river was a Ten giving me the straight! That goes down as one of my better suckouts. I am now the big chip leader with 35k in chips and no need to take the add-on.

The very next hand, which was the first hand of the 500-1000 level, it was folded to me again in late position and I had 3s4s. I figure I would intimidate a little bit and raise to steal the blinds. The other new player then raised all in with his 9,000 in chips. I did some quick math and figured I was getting better than 2-1 and called. He had Ace-King so it was the best hand I could hope for. Naturally I binked off the straight again on the river to beat him and added more to my big stack.

From that point on, I tried to play pretty tight. It was pretty much ABC poker until the field started to narrow. Jeff was only going to pay the top 3 places and apparently they never chop. As the blinds went up, the short stacks were going broke and I was maintaining my stack. We eventually got down to 4 handed. The man on my right was a nice guy and had built up a stack similar to mine. Unfortunately he lost most of it to his wife, Tina and was down to one 2,000 chip on the bubble. He almost made the miraculous comeback. He won three hands in a row, and then he open raised all in from the small blind into my big blind. I talked myself into calling with Jack-Ten and he rolled over Ace-3. For once, I did not lay a beat on someone and he doubled up again.

Because the blinds were getting so high, I did not feel too comfortable trying to abuse the bubble. One wrong move and I could be crippled as well, so I was not happy to see the comeback. Luckily soon after he got his chips, Tina ended up knocking him out when he flopped top pair, but she had top two pair.

We soon knocked out Ira, a former dealer at Harrah’s, in third place and it was heads up between me and Tina. She was a good player, but she was not very aggressive when it got short handed and she was letting me run her over. The blinds were high enough, that the only real move for her and me was to go all in on any hand we wanted to play. But she kept trying to limp in on her small blind and I kept raising her off the hand.

I had her down close to 2-1 in chips when I finally decided to limp with 10-4 offsuit on the button. She checked and I flopped a ten for top pair. She bet into me and I decided to just call and slow play. The turn was a Queen and she bet again. I became a little concerned, but I thought she still had enough chips to fold if I raised all in. That’s what I did and she hesitated for a couple of seconds, which gave me some hope, before she announced, “call” and had me crushed with Q-5 which was two pair. I slow played my way into a big loss.

I only had 3 big blinds left for the next hand and lost the next all in to come in second place. With all the lucky breaks I was getting, I was sure I was going to win this thing, but made a bad decision and it cost me. Still the $210 was nice.

WBPT, The Craziest Game Ever; Will I Ever Be Good At This Game?

2009-12-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

I was in Las Vegas last weekend to tag along with my wife, Michele as she attended the Colorado River User Water Conference at Caesar's Palace. Naturally this meant lots of poker for me along with some alone time with the wife sans Jake.

My first foray down to the poker room at Caesar's was derailed at 10:00 AM because there was not a game running. There were only 2 tables with players at them and they were left overs from the 9:00 AM tournament. I went to get breakfast and kill some time until the 12:00 tournament. This is when I found the casino's excuse for a $5 black jack table.

Shockingly the minimum bet at a table with a live dealer for blackjack on a Thursday morning was $25. The alternative is video blackjack with a virtual dealer. The minimum bet is only $5. The video is creepy because it does not flow smoothly. Plus they change it every 5 minutes. It would be infinitely better if you could just freeze it on the hot dealer in a bikini dealing by the pool. Instead I got a steady diet of a good looking black man followed by a smiling japanese female.

This was fine for killing time, but I found one major fault with the game. Once you have put in a bet, there is no way to delete it or decrease it. I was content to play $5 at a time, but after winning a couple of hands in a row, I decided to up it to $10. I hit a button that said 10 but it increased my bet by 10x so I wound up betting $50. I frantically looked for the delete button as the clock ticked down but I could not find one. Oh well, maybe I'll get lucky. Nope. My 15 busts. I end up losing for $40 for the session before I walk into the poker tournament.

The noon tournament at Caesars had a good turnout with over 80 players for $85 a piece. I was disappointed to find out that the structure has changed since the last time I was there. Now the blind levels are only 20 minutes. They do start you with 130 BB but I knew that would not last too far past the second hour.

There was not anything real exciting about this experience. Some times in tournaments every move you make works out and other times it doesn't. I got caught bluffing repeatedly and my image was pretty bad. I never caught the really good cards to get paid off and I finally busted when an active player on the button raised my big blind. I had Kc9c and decided to ship in 18 BB over the top of him praying for the fold. This time he was raising with a good hand and called with Ace-King. I missed my flush and 3 pair outs and was out in around 50th place.

I played a good amount of No Limit cash games this weekend and here is my list of concerns.

1. Far too often I don't feel comfortable that I know where I am at in a hand. For some reason I think that I should be able to sit at a table at this level and have confidence that I can play better than most of the players at the table. This was rarely happening.

2. I still don't know how to adjust to certain tables that play different than ABC poker. Here's what gives me trouble:

A table with a bunch of loose passive players. They limp whenever they can and hardly ever raise. They never reraise. So I will raise good cards in position and get 3-5 other players in the hand. Unless I flop two pair or better, I can almost always expect to get beat by someone smooth calling AK and flopping top pair or a sneaky guy who hit his set.

The other kind of table is one I seldom run into but it should be insanely profitable. What do you do when you run into a player or two who is content to raise every hand 5x the blind in the dark? He will call almost any raise to see the flop and loves to try and outplay his opponents. Do you risk the reraise and c-bet any flop hoping he misses? Or do you call and try to wade through the other 3-4 players and just hope you hit a monster?

I posted the question on 2+2 and the majority response was to reraise my good hands or hands that can make top pair, good kicker. If I hit top pair or even middle pair, bet strong and hope it holds up. I'm sure that it becomes a much higher variance game and I have to be able to stomach the swings. However, in the long run that is probably the most profitable way to play it.

On Friday night I managed to convince my wife to join me in a forayh over to the Mirage to join the a bunch of Poker Bloggers and the World Poker Blogger Tour WPBT gathering. I found Iggy at the table and he warned me that the 1-2 No Limit game was crazy. "If you have any respect for money, this is not the game for you."

I sat back and watched and met Otis and Linda from PokerWorks . Michele decided to try her luck at the slots so I swallowed hard and decided to put my name on the list for the game.

I was quickly moved into the game and it was as crazy as advertised. The sole purpose of half the players at the table was to lay as bad a beat as possible on someone so they would have a story to write about when they got home. Multiple players were raising and reraising blind.

This is definitely not a game I am comfortable in but it should be profitable if my hands hold up. I was there to have a good time so that's what I decided to do. This didn't change my normal tight poker game much, but I made sure to interact and tell some jokes so maybe in their drunken stupor they would not notice that I was only playing premium hands.

Sure enough, on two different hands I raised preflop with Ace-Queen. Got called in a couple of spots. Flopped the Ace, and check raised all in on the flop. I got called by weaker Aces both times and left the game up over $300. Otis was down over $2,000 when I left. That's how swingy this game was.

The Man Who Never Shows Down a Hand

2009-11-25T19:10:00.000-08:00

I left work a little early today to play in the afternoon tournament at Casino Arizona. It's a very convoluted buy in process, but the simple description is I paid $85 for $3,800 in starting chips with the blinds at 25-50.

We started with 90 runners today and I got off to a good start when I raised KQ after two limpers who called. The flop looked innocent so I made a continuation bet and they both folded.

I also made a nice steal in the first level when two other players meekly limped into the pot. The small blind called and I raised on the big blind to 300. They all folded like the weak tight sissies I thought they were.

For most of the first 3 levels, I did not have any great starting hands. All the pots I won were from stealing the blinds or raising preflop and making a bet on the flop to take it down. I believe I had 5,900 in chips at the first break.

While I was heading outside for some fresh air, I ran into my friend Noah at another one of the tournament tables. Noah has had pretty good success in these tournaments and I have been anxious to play with him, to study his play. We said a quick hello and we were back to our separate tables.

Slowly and surely the field was whittling away and we were down to 3 tables. When they consolidated to three tables, I was moved to Noah's table where I noticed that he had a pretty big stack.

Noah played like I expected from our previous conversations. He was very aggressive in that he raised frequently preflop and was always evaluating how to take the pot away from someone. He really does try to play the man more than his cards. That is something I wish I did more of in my game, but it can also come back and bite you in the ass if you are not schooled in some of the fundamentals of the game.

For instance I noticed that Noah would get himself pot committed often when he could have sized his bets differently. He was also raising some strange amounts preflop and I could not figure out if there was a pattern since nobody was really playing back at him.

I ended up doubling up off of him when he raised his AQ into my pocket Kings on my big blind. I was pretty short, so he was going to have to call my reraise with darn near any two cards. I flopped a King so that was a good double up.

A couple of rounds went buy and we ran into each other again. This time he raised in middle position with 66 and I reraised all in from the button with Ace-8. He called and I hit an 8.

Noah eventually went bust with around 25 players left. It was here where I started a very interesting streak. For the next 3-4 levels of play, I was all in somewhere between 10-12 times and not called once! I may have had a decent hand like KQ suited a couple of times, but most of them were well timed raises against players who were tight or it was folded to me at the button or small blind and I just played the odds that my opponent(s) would not have the cards to call me. These were truly some of the tighest players I had seen at a tournament in Casino Arizona.

This strategy kept me between 7 and 13 times the big blind and eventually got me to the final table.

Once we got there we had the inevitable discussion about a chop. The table decided to pool the prize money from 4th to 10th and split it evenly among all of the players. This gave me a guarantee of $342 versus 10th place money of $108.

It was soon after that I finally picked up Aces. I raised to 2.5x the blind and a relatively short stack behind me, raised all in. I called to see his AQ. My hand held up and I finally had a comfortable stack.

It did not last long as the very next hand I raised again with pocket 5's. Another short stack moved all in. I was priced in to call and he turned over Ace-King. I was hoping to win yet another race, but he flopped broadway and I was drawing near dead. A five binked off on the river just to rub a little salt in the wound. I was back to short stack shove mode again.

We lost a couple more players and got down to 7 handed. The players started talking about making a deal again since nobody was a big chip leader. I had chipped up a little to about 10x the blind which put me in 2nd place. This time the amount would be over $700. I was adamant that I was not making a deal now. A tight russian player on my right began to plead with me to make the deal. "$400 is a lot of money...You don't know what will happen....You still have to eliminate 4 other people...blah blah blah". I finally insisted that he shut up because I was not changing my mind.

To make things interesting, I soon had a hand I felt was worthy of a raise. I counted out my chips and the Russian starts chirping again, saying "now there is a big target on you." His bitching did not motivate anyone else to call my raise and I won the blinds again.

I found this to be an interesting psychological dynamic because usually I am quiet and friendly and do not want to draw attention to the fact that I am trying to rape other players blinds. This guy had forced my image out into the open and was encouraging others to take shots at me.

I made a small adjustment and tightened up a little and made sure I only raised hands that I was comfortable calling a reraise with or I just moved all in and hoped they were not frustrated enough to make the spite call. Luckily the Russian was on my right so I was able to act after him during most of the hands and could avoid any direct confrontations.

During this stretch of the tournament I continued to find the right times to raise and win the blinds as nobody wanted to mess with me. We finally lost the Russian when he went all in with JJ and another player woke up with AA.

The blinds were now getting humongous at 2000-4000 and they rolled up to 4000-8000 when we finally got down to 4 players. At this point the chip leader had 135,000 and I was second with 65,000. The other two players had approximately 40,000 in chips. Now I was ready to take a deal. We gave the guy with first place chips $1,200 and the rest of us split up $923 each.

It was one of those tournaments where almost all of my "moves" worked and the other times where I was ready to make a move, someone else would beat me to it and end up saving me money because I ended up folding a losing hand.

I'm sure there was a lot of luck involved, but this tournament really felt like I won it with skill. I was never all in where I was more than a 44% dog and the fact that I was almost never called when I raised says I did a very good job of picking the right spots to steal. The boost to the poker bankroll feels really good.

Have I Finally Found The Golden Goose?

2009-10-25T18:12:00.000-07:00

I mostly play on Full Tilt because I have a rake back deal and for the most part it is just as good as Pokerstars. I happened to be exploring over at Pokerstars a couple of weeks ago and I noticed they have "Double or Nothing" Sit-n-Go's. This means they start with 10 players at one table and if you make the final 5, you double your money.

I have been bemoaning the fact that there were not tournaments like this just for cash. I have been decidely plus expected value in my satellite experience because so many players make tournament killing mistakes when they could afford to fold their way into the money.

My prayers have been answered. Apparently they have been running for months and I was ignorantly unaware.

I know it's still a small sample size but I have now played 39 of these tournaments at the $21.60 level and I have cashed in 26. I can play up to 5 at a time without much trouble and today I accomplished the ultimate goal which was to play 5 and cash in all five.

There are extensive posts now on 2+2 about these tables and I'm sure the hard core players are quickly figuring out the mathematically perfect way to play these tournaments. But for now, there are 5-6 fishes at every table and I am happy to take advantage.

In other news, I have finally put together a winning streak at Casino Arizona. The last 3 times I have played, I have left with more money than I started with. To make things even more amazing, it has been in three different games: 3-6 limit hold'em, 1-2 No Limit Hold'em, and 3-6 limit omaha 8 or better.

Still Backsliding

2009-10-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

My poker bankroll is all the way down to close to $2,000. I don't know what I am doing wrong. When I play PLO or No Limit Hold'em it seems that whenever I make a good hand, nobody pays me off. I am still pretty good about not losing a lot, but I never win the big pots to get me to a big winning session.

Lets do some analysis of my last few No Limit Hold'em online sessions:

10/2 299 hands won $52.45
Hands won over $20 5 for a total of $202
Hands lost over $20 3 for a total of $161

9/29 339 hands lost $35.75
Hands won over $20 2 for a total of $46
Hands lost over $20 0

9/22 243 hands lost $21.65
Hands won over $20 1 for $39
Hands lost over $20 1 for $51

9/19 574 hands lost $394
Hands won over $20 3 for $84
Hands lost over $20 9 for $417 Ouch!

9/17 329 hands lost $197
Hands won over $20 6 for $184
Hands lost over $20 7 for $300

9/13 100 hands lost $108
Hands won over $20 0
Hands lost over $20 1 for $100

9/12 469 hands lost $125
Hands won over $20 6 for $232
Hands lost over $20 8 for $285

So over my last few sessions I have won 23 big pots and lost 29. So it would make sense to lose less big pots. However I still think that I am not winning enough on the big pots to offset the losses. It also seems like some of the big losses were cold decks or bad beats so maybe I just need to run a bit better as well.

After some struggles with Hold'em Manager I finally broke down my hands by starting cards to see where I was losing money. I have only had Hold'em manager for almost 3 months so I only have approximately 5000 hands. My suspicions were confirmed.

AA 15 times won $22
KK 16 times lost $73
QQ 17 times even
AKo or AKs 42 times lost $152

These are supposed to be very profitable hands. I went back and reviewed the hands and I saw a few minor mistakes but I did not see any horrible misplays. The main thing I noticed was that I five bet shoved a few times with AK and got called with 99 and TT, but I never seemed to get called by those hands when I did it with AA or KK. They usually folded after my first raise. I'd say that's a bad run of cards.

The Casino Arizona is still treating me like shit. I must lose 80% of the time in limit hold'em sessions this year. I am really striving to improve on reading people and choosing my times to bluff much more selectively. However, I can't seem to catch a break when I do have the winning hand on the flop or turn. I seem to be running pretty bad on the river. I know I sound like every other whiner on the internet forums, but since hardly anyone else reads this blog, I'll shout out into the void.

I will be heading out to Fort McDowell tonight for another football promotion. If I can't win the money from the players I might as well try and win it back from the casinos.

It's Official. I am running bad

2009-09-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here are my stats from tonight's session:
574 hands played in a little over 2 hours

I lose $394.70.

AA twice. Once it's folded to me in the BB and I win $0.50. The other time, I reraise and win $3.

AK 3 times. I net a negative $10.

KK 4 times. 3 times I raise and win the blinds. The fourth time I get it all in on the flop and the other guy has Aces. Net loss with KK = $124

QQ twice. I win the blinds both times for a profit of $2.50

I won three pots over $25 for the night with the biggest being $31.50. I lost 6 pots greater than $25. The biggest was the KK hand.

Here was the second biggest of the night:

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official [url=http://www.twoplustwo.com/]2+2[/url] Hand Converter [url=http://www.deucescracked.com/]Powered By DeucesCracked.com[/url]

[b]Hero (CO): $110.30[/b]
BTN: $102.00
[b]SB: $84.10[/b]
BB: $39.00
UTG: $20.95
MP: $162.10

[b]Pre Flop:[/b] ($1.50) Hero is CO with T:club: T:spade:
UTG calls $1, [i]1 fold[/i], [color=red]Hero raises to $4.50[/color], [color=red]BTN raises to $13[/color], SB calls $12.50, [i]2 folds[/i], Hero calls $8.50

[b]Flop:[/b] ($41.00) 7:heart: 5:diamond: 4:spade: [color=blue](3 players)[/color]
[color=red]SB bets $5[/color], [color=red]Hero raises to $23[/color], BTN folds, SB calls $18

[b]Turn:[/b] ($87.00) 7:spade: [color=blue](2 players)[/color]
[color=red]SB bets $5[/color], [color=red]Hero raises to $49[/color], SB calls $43.10 all in

[b]River:[/b] ($183.20) K:spade: [color=blue](2 players - 1 is all in)[/color]

[b]Final Pot:[/b] $183.20
Hero shows T:club: T:spade: (two pair, Tens and Sevens)
SB shows J:spade: 9:spade: (a flush, King high)
SB wins $180.20
(Rake: $3.00)

So this donkey calls a 3bet in the blind with Js 9s preflop. Calls my cbet with nothing but a runner runner flush draw. Calls the turn bet with the flush draw, and gets there on the river.

I am mad about the beat, but not tilted. What tilts me is that in 4 different hands later in the session, I have him in a pot that I am sure he is going to pay me off and he escapes every time. WHAT THE F***!

Win Some, Lose More

2009-09-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

After my last post, I waited a day and played some $26 multi table sit and go's. I finally ran like a god and cashed a 2nd place and a 4 th place to clear over $320.

Feeling good about my chances tonight, but the cash games were not good to me.

I have 9cTc on the button in 6 handed .50-1 NL. $104 in my stack. I raise to 3.50. The BB (lilmissdezi) calls.
Flop is 7c 8d 5c. So I have 15 outs with the straight and flush draw and hell maybe the 9's and 10's are good for outs too so that may give me as many as 21 outs twice. I bet $5 and lilmissdezi calls. The turn is 3h. No help but I bet again this time $12. I am called again.

I am wondering if my opponent has an over pair like 10's and is trying to keep the pot small. I have not played many hands with her yet so I don't have a good grasp of her style.

The river is Qd and I miss my infinite draw. I decide the pot is big and the only way to win it is to bluff at it. I fire $23 and my opponent calls with Ac,7s for second pair. Wow!

In another bluff gone awry. I have Ks Ts in the small blind. A new player named nala314 is in the hijack and open raises to $3.50. I call from the small blind and the BB folds. The flop is 3h Jd 7h. I check and nala314 bets $2 into an $8 pot. Since this flop is ragged and $2 looks very weak, I decide to check raise to $8. nala314 calls before I even finish clicking on the bet button.

The turn is a Ts. I think the snap call is a heart draw or top pair, with a weak kicker. This time I bet $15 into a $24 pot and he snap calls again. Now I am leaning towards more of a pocket pair type of hand.

The river is the 8s putting 4 to a straight out. I check hoping for a free showdown. He bets $30 into the $54 pot. I don't think I beat anything so I fold. He shows me a bluff of AsQc. Double Wow!

Last strange hand:

I have AA in the small blind. I have already had to lay down pocket aces once in this session on the turn. My other big pocket pairs have received no action at all. The button raises to 3.00. I decide to smooth call and try to trap. The BB comes along. The effective stacks here were $80.

The flop is 7s 7h Ks. I check again to play it slow. The BB bets $4 into a $9 pot. The button raises to $13. I already hate my hand. I really want to shove and hope they are playing like jackasses, but I fight the urge and just call. The BB then shoves all in for his last $77 and the button calls. Well that makes it an easy fold. The BB has 7d Td and the button has Ad Kc. So the button was an idiot that I could have stacked if I had just re-raised before the flop and knocked out the BB.

I rarely slow play high pocket pairs but lately when I try to mix it up, I get burned.

Session analysis Running into Quads

2009-09-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

This will probably be incredibly boring but in order to improve my dismal play lately I am going to force myself to evaluate the biggest winners and losers from each session.

So this was from a 456 hand session of .50-1 NL where I lost $150.

Here are the losers:

Ah6s on the button. Herpes Is 4eva is in the cutoff. He open raises to $3.50 with 30/23/2.8 stats. I reraise to $12. He calls.

The reraise is a bit aggressive but I was in position and I had not done it very much so I expected to win the pot preflop most of the time.

Flop is 2d 5s Ts. Herpes checks and I make a cbet of $18 into a 25.50 pot. Herpes calls. I think the cbet wins the pot most of the time with a ragged flop like that. He calls, so he's either peeling one off with AK, has a pocket pair that he's not too comfortable with like JJ, 99, or 88. Or he's slow playing a monster set.

I am done with this hand. The turn is a 6h so the board is 2d 5s Ts 6h. It's checked through. The river is the 3 of hearts and it's checked through again.

I think this was a good bluff that didn't go my way. Herpes shows down JJ.

Hand #2

I have QQ in BB. Regina in cutoff raises to 3.50. She is 16/12/inf after 27 hands so not a huge sample. I decide to mix things up and just call in the BB. I think I have been getting irritated that I am getting no action with my high pocket pairs preflop so that's probably what led to this slow play.

Flop is 2s Ts 9h. I decide to go for a check raise. Regina complys and bets the pot of $7.50. I raise to $20. She 3 bets it all in for $96.50 total. I call and she shows T 9 for top two pair. I miss my slim draws and she takes $100 off me.

Looking back, I think I can find a fold here. The only hand I am beating that might shove all in is JJ or maybe AsKs. And even AK with the flush draw I am actually behind on the hand. I was happy to get my whole stack in with QQ before the flop, so I rationalized that I can just as well do it on the flop.

Hand #3

I have 7s 7c in cutoff. Hotsauce raises to $3 under the gun. I call the raise instead of reraising because Hotsauce is playing 16/12/2 and pretty tight. I want to try and hit a set rather than reraise and get pushed off my hand if he 4 bets. Pammy824 reraises on the button to $12. The blinds fold and Hotsauce folds leaving me to call $9 into a $19 pot out of position. Pammy is 18/18/inf after 45 hands.

Pammy started with $100 so her stack may not quite be big enough for me to call the reraise hoping to flop a set.

The flop is 6d As 7d. This is a dream flop since you always want to flop a set when there is an Ace in the board since the other player may go broke with a pair of Aces and a good kicker. I check to slow play and Pammy bets $18 into a $28.50 pot. I smooth call.

Turn is the Ac. I check again, hoping to get it all it with my 7's full of Aces against trip aces. Pammy checks behind so maybe she had KK or QQ and is afraid of the Aces now? River is 8d so board reads 6d As 7d Ac 8d. That completes a lot of draws so I should get paid out now. I go for a value bet of $34 and pammy cooperates and shoves the rest in for $70. I snap call and she rolls over AA for quad Aces.

I don'tthink there was a way of getting away from this awful luck.

Marathon at Ft McDowell; Bad Beat Jackpot

2009-09-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Kory turned me on to the football promotions at Fort McDowell casino this year. For the college games they will splash pot $75 on 3 tables for every touchdown and $75 on one table for every field goal. Since Fort McDowell has 1/4 of the tables as Casino Arizona, your chances of hitting one of these bonuses is much higher.

It would seem that the key to winning these prizes would be to pick the highest scoring games. On the preannounced schedule, it would seem that the Oklahoma/BYU game would fit the bill. The over/under in Vegas was 69 points and Oklahoma was favored by more than 20 even though BYU is a top 25 team. We figured this game was good for 8-9 touchdowns for sure.

In a debacle on the scale of last year's Super Bowl promotion, the game was a real snoozefest. Oklahoma's Heisman winning quarterback, Sam Bradford, hurt his shoulder at the end of the first half. This totally ruined any chance of this turning into a high scoring affair. The final was 14-13 with BYU scoring the upset. My table did get splashed once, but I could not find one pair our of all 5 cards on the board and the winner won with a pair of 5's and 7 kicker.

Even if I don't win the promotional funds, I should still be able to pick up some money from the other bad players right? I was down a quick $80 in the first couple of hours with losing lots of small pots where I raise with AK, whiff the flop, bet the flop and/or turn with nothing and give up on the river to see someone calling me down with 2nd pair or worse. In fact I saw one hand where a player actually called on the river with 5 high. Let me repeat that....there were two other players in the pot and he called down with 5 high!

Kory asked me to join him at his table, but I wasn't about to leave my table of horrible players. Alas, nothing went according to plan as Kory had to leave early because of a babysitting issue and I continued to lose pot after pot.

With the game winding down, I was down over $200 and pulling out my last $100 bill. I called Michele to give her a progress report and told her I was about to make my triumphant comeback. She gave me to OK to stay as long as I wanted so I went back to grinding.

I gave myself a couple of artificial deadlines to stop and go home but I managed to find an excuse to stay each time. 9:00 PM came along and I had managed to make it all the way back to only down $20. Since I was so close to making a profit and starting to catch some cards, I figured I would stay and try to get to the positive. By 10:00 PM I was down over $100 again and was too stubborn to leave stuck this much after all this time.

Here is where the miracle happens. A stocky younger man had sat on my left for the last 15 minutes and proceeded to lighten up the table. The proceeding gentleman in the seat was causing tension at the table by criticizing other players and acting as if he was God's gift to poker. We were all glad to see him go. The new guy was a clown, but in a playful way and it was fun to banter back and forth with him as he played any two cards.

He was caught up in a hand with a quiet asian lady in the one seat. The board was 2d-10h-5h. The lady had bet her hand and the guy on my left called. The turn was a 2 of hearts completing the flush draws. Now the asian woman checks and the guy bets. She calls. So it looks like the guy on my left has hit his flush. The river is the 3 of hearts. Now she bets and he raises. They are heads up and start stacking chips for reraises. Since it is heads up there are unlimited raises and eventually they both get around $28 in on the river.

The guy on my left blurts out, "I hope you have 4 twos lady!" and rolls over his straight flush with the Ah4h. She does roll over the the 4 of a kind and the entire table celebrates.

The bad beat jackpot fund was $5,200. That means the 4 of a kind wins $2,600, the straight flush wins $1,300 and the rest of the table split the last 25% only 6 ways since we were two players short. That worked out to $217.

It's been years since I won any kind of share of a bad beat, but I distinctly remember it taking a long time to pay out. I was tired after playing for 7 hours and ready to go home. Sure enough I had to wait until after midnight before we finally got paid.

Knowing that I was going to be there a while, I made a goal to finish strong and at least break even with my initial bankroll before adding my table share. Finally things started to go my way as I hit some longshot draws and bluffed a couple of pots successfully. I managed to get all the way back to down $5 on the day before they called my name.

I went up to collect my winnings. I tipped the dealer $10 and went back to rack up my chips. After a quick late night stop at Jack In The Box, my profit for the night was $199. Poker is definitely a hard way to make an easy living.

What Do I Do With Small Pocket Pairs?

2009-08-31T19:30:00.000-07:00

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Lionne24 ($229.35) -
Seat 2: Needbankroll ($268.10) -
Seat 3: Poker_Bully1 ($257.70) -
Seat 4: lance74 ($229)
Seat 5: Porntraktr ($200)
Seat 6: Finchster ($227.20)

PRE-FLOP:

Needbankroll posts small blind $1
Poker_Bully1 posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

FOLD lance74
FOLD Porntraktr
FOLD Finchster
FOLD Lionne24
RAISE Needbankroll ($6)
RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($21)
RAISE Needbankroll ($50)
FOLD Poker_Bully1
UNCALLED Needbankroll ($29)
MUCK Needbankroll

Needbankroll collected $42 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $42 Rake: $0

Seat 1: Lionne24 button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: Needbankroll small blind collected 42, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($20)
Seat 3: Poker_Bully1 big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-21)
Seat 4: lance74 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: Porntraktr didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: Finchster didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

I ran into this situation a few times last night and I am puzzled on what to do. The players that kept reraising me or 4 betting me had solid stats, but it seemed to be happening more than normal. It was tough to say whether the table had seen me fold and was exploiting it or they just happened to have good hands when I had a good hand.

Folding is always a conservative option. I protect my stack and wait for a better situation. I am seldom dominating someone if they call. I know at higher levels the better players will exploit this and begin to reraise me lighter and lighter. I am not sure how many players at 1-2 NL are paying this much attention.

I can call and hope to flop a set. In this particular hand we started with effective stacks of 120 BB. He raised 3x and I 3bet to 10x. He 4 bet to 25x. Assuming I win his whole stack if I hit, then I am calling 15 more bets to win 35x in the pot and 100x more in his stack which is approximately 9-1 odds.

This still isn't that profitable in the long run because I am losing 25x every time I get in this position and don't hit my set. You may say, "Yeah but you're only calling 15x not 25x." Yes but that's only because I reraised in the first place. I could have just called the initial raise in position and seen the flop cheaper.

The aggressive option is to push all in and pray for a fold or Ace-King. It will definitely sting more when I lose some of these confrontations, but maybe it will get me more action when I 4 bet my Aces and Kings? Once again, the problem is that I don't play enough against the same opponents for them to notice if I am 4 bet shoving light. If I get lucky and happen to get Aces within a 100 or so hands after shoving all in with 6's then maybe it pays off. Most of the time my sessions a table are rarely more than 200 hands so the odds are pretty long for getting multiple pocket pairs that are worth getting it all in over.

Do any of my 5 or so readers have a suggestion or comment?

Number 1 Lesson of Omaha 8 or Better

2009-08-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

I learned a $120 lesson today at the casino. It makes no sense to draw at anything less than the nuts in the 3-6 Limit Omaha 8 or better game at Casino Arizona.

Besides some tilt hands, I went to the river three times with the second or third best hand and watched my money go to horrible players.

Once again, the table was full of donkeys playing any four cards. I am convinced now that just playing solid cards and ABC poker, I could be a very consistent winner at this game.

I JUST NEED TO BE DISCIPLINED!!!!!!

For some reason I was still on tilt from yesterday's PLO session online. I lost $380 which in it self is not hard to do in that game. The frustrating thing was that I lost the majority of it $10-$20 at a time. For the first two hours my largest won pot was $14. I just never hit a hand. I never stacked off, but I kept folding with small losses, but never hit the big hand to make up for the losses. The last straw was losing with a gut shot straight and the nut flush draw to two pair. I was a 60% favorite when the money went in, but I was not running good enough to hit one of my 12 outs and I quit the game.

I tried to do some analysis on why I have been on a losing streak over the last 5 months. I reviewed my blog and I think the reason is that I have been playing too many tournaments and not enough cash games.

My excuse for playing the tournaments was to get my game sharp for the possibility of playing in the World Series. Since that is over with, I think I will concentrate on trying to build up the bank roll for the next few months. I won the first two sessions I played after this goal was set, so I think that's why I was bothered so much when I lost in PLO. I basically lost back everything that I had won.

August will be a winning month. I promise.

The Drought Finally Ends at Casino AZ

2009-07-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

After what seemed like at least 10 losing trips to Casino Arizona, I finally walked away a winner today. I made a change that may be a very profitable one in the future. I finally sat down in the 3-6 Omaha 8 or better game.

When I first showed up after work, there was a list of 7-8 players waiting for Omaha so I sat in a 3-6 Hold'em game while I waited for my name to be called. The hold'em game was more of the same old shit as I dropped a quick $50 in about 20 minutes. My second hand of the session was Jack Ten offsuit in the big blind. I flopped a ten for top pair and bet the flop and turn. I checked the river and lost to another ten with a Queen kicker.

The very next hand, I find Ace-Queen in the small blind. There is one limper and I raise. The big blind comes along and the limper calls one more. I totally miss the Jack high flop. I bet anyway and the blind calls while the preflop limper folds. I bluff the turn and the river. The blind at least thinks for a few seconds before calling the river with a pair of tens and a nine kicker. Why do I continue to try and force people to fold in this stupid game?!

Finally my name is called for the 3-6 Omaha game and I rack up what's left of my stack and hustle over. In a sign of good luck, a player on the button wants to take the open seat that I was about to take. He wants to play the button first, so I get a free hand, which I fold and then I get to switch behind the button without paying the blinds. I tend to focus on these small victories when I am losing.

The first thing I did was try to figure out a way to look at all 4 cards at once. This is more difficult than it sounds since it is especially difficult to shield your cards from the other players with 4 in your hand. I finally decided to line them up in portrait style, one on top of the other so I could peel them up all at once with my thumb.

While trying not to look like a total amateur, I reminded myself to watch all of my opponents for the cards they were turning over at showdown. At the very least it would give me an idea of their starting hand requirements. As I get faster at reading hands, I can graduate to recreating the action in my head to see if my opponents have tendencies with certain hands. This type of detailed thinking was not really necessary in this game as the players were incredibly bad.

Last night I started reading the Omaha 8 or better section in Jeff Hwang's Pot Limit Omaha Poker book. He mentioned, as many others have that you can make a lot of money in loose Omaha 8 games by just playing or drawing to the nuts. This game was a prime example.

My first clue that this was a soft game was when the player two to my left tried to raise KJ78 before the flop. I also saw hands like AQ77 and KK33. Wow!
Unfortunately my mind has not adapted to remembering all the cards in Omaha hands (I can barely recreate them for hold'em). I believe my first win was half of a small pot with a nut low. Then I won a big pot with the nut low and a Ten high flush for the high to scoop.

The player next to me was nice enough to show me his cards if I was out of the hand. He wanted some company for his misery as he kept hitting decent hands by the turn only to be decimated by the river. I will grant him that he was having some bad luck, but his major problem was that he should not have been in half of the hands to begin with. He was the ideal opponent because the only thing he would think of was his hand and whether he had any chance at a draw to a better hand. There was absolutely no thought to what the odds were to draw to these hands or the fact that even if he hit the draws, they were not to the nuts.

One of the neat things about this game is if you scoop a pot and it's over $50, the next hand is a kill pot and the stakes go up to $6-$12. It was one of these hands where I won my biggest pot, even though I split with another person.

I started with A23Qss in middle position. There was one limper and the kill pot poster before it got to me. I raised to build the pot since I figured it would at least be 4 way action with the money already in the pot. Instead there ended up being 7 players in the pot. The flop had a deuce and another low card in it. I had no high possible but a player on my right led into me. Since I was drawing to the nut low, I just call to try and bring others into the pot. Everyone calls! The turn gives me the nut low, but also puts a possible straight out there and a flush draw. The same thing happens again where I just call hoping for half the pot. Although by now, I am figuring that someone is going to quarter me for the low and I will be lucky to get my money back. The river is the third flush card. It's actually checked to me and I check it through. Everyone turns over their cards and there are a couple of straights and a non nut flush for high. Amazingly no one else has A-3 for the nut low and I win half of a monster pot. There were 6 people in the hand at the end and I was the only one with a nut low!

Right before I was going to leave, I backed into a scoop when my AQ23 hit Aces and twos for the high when no low was possible. Somehow it was checked through on the turn and river as no one tried to bluff at it. I was itching to fold, but when we turned over all the hands, I was the only one with an Ace in my hand. Someone else had Kings up, but that wasn't close to the winner.

So after a negative $50 set back at Hold'em, I left the casino up $60 for the day. That was a $110 swing in about an hour and a half. I know that a sample size of one doesn't count for much, but I really think I may have stumbled into a very profitable game for the next few sessions.

Should I Focus on Games Other Than No Limit Hold’em?

2009-07-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

On the drive back from Las Vegas, Michele made a suggestion that maybe I should try to specialize in some of the other games besides No Limit Hold’em. We were listening to one of the poker podcasts I had on my ITouch in the car and the guests were commenting on how much harder the online No Limit games had become over the last few years. The theory is that with all the coaching sites, books, and message boards out there, that the poker IQ of the average NL Hold’em player has gone way up and it is tougher to beat the game.

I happen to think that there is still money to be made at the low stakes levels of No Limit Hold’em online, but I was a little burnt out on Hold’em and I figured that I would rededicate myself to Omaha for the next few weeks and see if that is really the answer.

As I have written about in my previous posts, I have been learning how to play Pot Limit Omaha High over the last few months. I pulled up my Omaha Poker Tracker Stats and across all levels I have been losing .32 BB/100 over 8,430 hands. That is not a very large sample size and honestly, that could turn positive in about two sessions of .50-1 PLO.

Many players claim that PLO is the game of the future. It is much more complex than Hold’em and therefore, there are very few experts at the game and most of them are playing at nosebleed stakes. According to a couple of authors that I have read, the skill difference between an expert and pretty good player in PLO is very small, because it is very rare that you get someone all in drawing dead or close to it. I disagree with this statement because I have found that I have seen players get their whole stack in the pot drawing at non nut hands, when someone else already has the nuts.

I think there is definitely a profitable niche in these games, I just have to improve enough to take advantage. Plus it has become a very popular game, so it is not hard to find 12-20 tables running of 6 max or full ring at Poker Stars or Full Tilt.

The other game I wanted to investigate was Limit Omaha Eight or Better (O8). I have heard that this game has less variance that Limit Hold’em and that a good player can clean up in these games because most people have no idea how to play split pot games. I only have 988 hands in my Poker Tracker data base for split games, but I am slightly ahead.

I have seen evidence in every game I have played over the last week, that there are some really bad O8 players. I even tried to observe the 3-6 O8 game at Casino Arizona while I was waiting for a seat to open up. I had heard that it was a bunch of old men who only played the nuts. Instead, in the hands I observed, there was a fundamental mistake made by somebody on almost every hand.

The problem with O8 is that it is not nearly as popular as Pot Limit Omaha. If I’m lucky there is one 3-6 and one 6-12 live game running at the Casino. That can make for a long wait if there are a few people in line ahead of me. Online is not much better as I have been playing the .5-1 games on Poker Stars and Full Tilt. The full ring games will have 3-4 tables running. There is not a lot of chance for game selection there. It’s even worse at the higher levels where you are lucky if there is one full ring table running at each level.

The other problem with O8 is that that it is a very slow game. The dealer has to deal 4 cards to everyone, so that takes more time. Every pot at the end is usually split so it takes longer to read the hands and separate the chips. It could really drive a guy nuts who is used to playing 3-4 tables at once online. I might have to play at very high stakes live, in order to compensate for playing ¼ as many hands as if I was playing online.

I have cracked open my books on Omaha and over the next few weeks I plan on posting some strategy for Omaha. I doubt any of it will be ground breaking stuff, but I figure if I write it down in my own words, it will help me synthesize the lessons and make me a better player. I also plan on taking at least two hands from every session and posting them on Cardrunners or Two Plus Two to get feedback from the other players.

For the next month I am going to become an Omaholic.

I Went To The WSOP And All I Got Was This Lousy Beefstick!

2009-07-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

Michele and I went on what I hope is now an annual trip to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. Last year I qualified through Full Tilt Poker online, but this year I was not as lucky. I figured I would give a $550 mega satellite one last chance before I give up for 2009.

We arrived in Las Vegas a little after 2:00 PM and we immediately headed to the Convention Center to check out the action. After a brief chat with a supervisor, I found out that the satellite would start at 4:00 PM. Michele and I decided that we would postpone our date night until Friday so I could play in today's tournament. We waited in line for about a 1/2 hour to register during which it was announced that the tournament start time would be pushed back until 4:30 because there were so many entries.

Eventually there were 526 runners for 26 seats. We started with 4,000 in chips and 1/2 hour levels. The first blind level was 25-50. My cards were horrendous for the first level. I think I folded the entire level. I may have tried a random blind steal and got reraised so I laid it down.

I tried a couple of other small moves in the next level that were unsuccessful as well. The third level was 100-200. I think I was down to around 3,500 in chips. I picked up 44 on the button. It was folded to me and I raised to 600. The crazy scandanavian in the big blind reraised to 1800. My first instinct was to push all in. It always looks like a steal when the button raises first in the pot. However, if my opponent had been paying attention, he should have noticed that I had not really played a hand in the last hour. I eventually pussed out and he turned over an Ace. I said, "there had better been another one of those in your hand."

I folded the next 9 hands when it was my button again. This time I called a raise from one of the more active players at the table with Q-3 offsuit. I was intending to play my position and figured he would fire at the flop and then I would take it on the turn when he checked. The problem was that the Small Blind called after me. So this makes the pot a little bigger that I want and now I have to bluff two people instead of one.

I don't remember what the flop was, but the small blind checked, the raiser bet, I called with nothing, and the small blind came along. The turn actually gave me an inside straight draw. The small blind checked again and this time the pre-flop raiser checked as well. So do I take the free card? The pot was already pretty big and I would be happy to take it down if they will let me. I fired at the pot leaving me just under 2k in chips. The small blind then pounced and announced he was all in. The other guy folded and I disgustedly mucked.

Now I really have to go into lock down mode. I only have 9 BB left. Luckily a short time later, an older hispanic fellow who could not speak english and was the worst player at the table limps in under the gun. I pick up pocket Queens and go all in. The blinds fold and the hispanic guy calls off half his stack with K-10. Luckily a King does not hit the board and I double up to nearly my starting stack.

The next level was the same 100-200 blind level but they added the 25 ante. Now my stack is getting whittled away each hand and I fold back down to 3,400. A newer player at the table raises in early position to 600. I look down at JJ and immediately ship it in. He snap calls with QQ and I go home now. An utterly distasteful performance.

I sulk back up to the room and check on Michele. She had ordered a $21 hamburger from room service and was in a half dazed meat coma on the bed. I sat down and enjoyed some free beef jerky and watched TV for an hour with her. Naturally my competitive nature would not allow me to sit still after losing $550 so I asked if it would be ok to go down and play some cash games for a while. She voiced some small concern that I might be upset, and I honestly told her that I felt OK. What I did not recognize was the onset of patience tilt.

There are many kinds of tilt. You can see a Phil Hellmuth rant where he berates another player and looks like a total ass. You can see someone take a bad beat and steam raise the next 5 hands. Patience tilt is where you are anxious to win your money back and tend to over play your hands. You are still waiting for the good ones, but once you get one, the money is probably going into the pot and you better hope that you are running good.

The Rio's poker room is right next to their sports book and pretty small for a hotel that prides itself on hosting the World Series. The smallest No Limit game they run is a $1-$3 blind game. That's a little higher than I normally play but I was not too concerned.

I decided to buy in a little short, to further encourage myself to be patient and not chase hands with silly suited connectors until I had built up a stack. The shorter buy in would force me to play premium hands and play them hard to get paid.

My very first hand, I picked up pocket queens. I was in the cutoff and I raised to $15. The button smooth called me and the big blind also came along. The flop was J-J-7. That looks pretty good. The blind checks and I bet $30. The button calls again but the blind then check raises me to $120. Ugh! My initial instinct was to fold. After all, very few guys have the balls to check raise a raiser and a caller with an under pair.

For some reason, the tilt devil on my other shoulder whispers in my ear. "Why would he check raise now? The flop is safe, any good player would check raise the turn and trap you for all your chips. Maybe he's just trying to bully the new guy? I listen the the tilt devil and push all in. The button folds. The blind takes a few seconds pondering the call before he pushes out the other $100. I knew that hesitation meant he had a Jack with a mediocre kicker. I was right as he eventually showed the J-9. The button claimed he threw away pocket Kings. He had no reason to lie, but I was a little flabbergasted that the deck had been that stacked against me in the very first hand.

I stumbled to the ATM and withdrew another buy in. Now I was playing pretty tight and a couple of new crazy players had joined the table. The young guy who had busted me had lost his stack and left the game. The new player was playing a lot of pots and making big raises preflop. It sucked having him on my left, so when a seat opened up two to his right, I jumped on it immediately. I would much rather have the maniac on my right. Plus there was a short stacked calling station on my immediate left now who would easily pay me off if I ever hit anything.

I had rebought in for $200 again, but after the seat change I put another $100 on the table so I would have the ammunition to play against the aggressive guy. I won a small pot with Ace-King after I reraised an early raiser. He made the call and I bluffed on a board of 2-3-8. So now my stack was sitting around $325.

A couple of hands later, I picked up AsKd again. I raised to $12. The player two seats to my left made it $35 and everyone else folded. My tilt devil suggested shoving all in, but I fought back that instinct. I decided to call and see what happens. The flop was Ac-Tc-6c. So I got top pair, but there is three to a flush out there. I think for a moment then check, planning to check raise. My thinking was that he will probably bet almost anything here to continue after his reraise preflop. If I am ahead, he will shut down after I raise and I won't have to play the turn and river and worry about another club coming. I did not think of it at the time, but it the flop also eliminates one of the hands he could have reraised me with as the AcKc is not possible since the Ac is on the board.

So I checked and he bet $50. I raised all in and he called immediately. He had the AdKc. The turn was another club and my stack was gone again. I knew I had overplayed the QQ hand earlier, but this one I was not so sure. I just ran poker stove and gave him a range of AA, KK, QQ, AK with the King of clubs, and AQ with the Queen of clubs. If that range is accurate then I was 59% to win the hand after the flop. If I take out his AQ hands my win rate only goes up to 60%. So I guess it wasn't terrible. I made my best poker move of the day and quit the game.

Michele was a little shocked when I told her how much I had lost, but that's the risk you take.

The next day while we were waiting at the Monte Carlo to meet my friends Rudy and Teresa for lunch, Michele and I hit the slot machines for a small profit. I then played black jack for a little while and made some small change there too.

After lunch and a quick nap, I decided to go back and conquer the Rio cash games again. This time I was bound and determined to wait for my good hands and hope to get paid when I hit them.

The game was reasonably soft and I had slowly increased my starting stack from $300 up to $425. I was a couple of hours into the session and I could feel my patience starting to wear a little thin.

A couple of the calling stations had busted and some short stacked timid players had taken their place so my chance for more profits were starting to look slim. Just about when I was ready to leave, I picked up 22 in middle position. A younger guy who had doubled up earlier when his top two pair had spiked a full house on the river against an old lady's bottom set, raised to $15. Since he was the only one at the table that had me covered, I could finally call with a small pocket pair and have the correct odds. The older man to my immediate left called as well and we had three to the flop.

One of the reasons for my frustration lately is that I had picked up a number of small pocket pairs in the last few sessions of poker and it seemed like it had been days since I had hit a set. This time the flop was good to me as it was a perfect A-7-2 rainbow. The initial raiser bet $30. I decided to slow play since the board was so harmless. I just called and the old man called behind me. The turn was a 9 which put two diamonds on the board. The raiser bet $50 this time and now I pounced and raised to a total of $150. The man on my left folded and my opponent started to think. He eventually put out the $100 to call and we went to the river. The dealer laid out another 7 giving me 2's full of 7's. My opponent checked. I'm not sure that a value bet is the best idea here. A good player is probably only going to call with something that beats me. Maybe he was fooling around with A-9 pre-flop and he hit two pair on the turn? I bet $150 and he took a little time and called again.

I showed the full house and he mucked. It was the biggest pot the table had seen since I had been there. My profit was $390 on just that hand! I folded the next couple of hands and then took a bathroom break to gather my thoughts. It was getting close to dinner time and I decided to call it a night. I racked up and went to tell Michele that I had won back half of the money I had lost the day before.

Dinner was at the Palms at Gardunos. We stuffed ourselves with cheesy Mexican goodness, but had to kill a couple of hours before the start time of the Hangover movie. The slots were not kind, but the black jack table was open only this time it was a $10 minimum bet instead of $5 like it was at the Monte Carlo. In spite of being distracted constantly by all the hot women dressed like prostitutes trying to get into the Jay-Z concert that night, I managed to win $100 to cap off my gambling for the trip.

We ended our vacation by watching the movie of the year. I don't think anything could have lived up to the hype that my friends were giving this movie, but it did it's best. I really appreciated the slide show of the bachelor party pictures at the end of the movie. Fortunately or unfortunately, a lot of those pictures brought back some memories of crazy days gone by.

Nice Win But It's A Little Late

2009-06-26T14:01:00.001-07:00

I thought this was going to be a quick 2 hour tournament, but over 100 people registered during the late registration period. I'll have to check but I think I was only all in and behind once the entire tournament and that was after we were already in the money. I had to push KJ and the big stack called me with A5. So even that was not too big of an underdog.

It's amazing how easy the game is when you get AA and KK at the right times and you manage to double up or triple up every time you get them.

It's too bad I did not have these cards in the Main Event satellite.

Last Chance For A Free Vacation

2009-06-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

The Full Tilt 150 seat Main Event Satellite starts at 3:00 PM today. We are an hour away from the start and they are still over $500,000 short of their guarantee. I bet there is a small overlay again this year. They need 3600 players to break even and they are at 2,512 as of 2:09 PM.

As a warm up I played 3 $12 turbo 180 man sit and gos on Stars. I busted out quickly on the first two, including one where I had AA against an underpair, all in preflop and got cracked.

The third one, I sucked out a couple of times early and built a big stack into the money. I was second in chips with 16 left and picked up AA in the sb. There was an all in, then a reraise before it got to me. I push and he calls with 99. If I win, I have twice the chips of the nearest competitor. The flop and turn look good, but the river screws me when a 9 hits and I am crippled. What could have been over $500 in prize money shrinks to $23.

The Full Tilt tournament is running and I have lost my first two hands trying to raise before the flop and getting my continuation bet bluffs called. It's ok, they start us with 3,000 in chips and the blinds are only 10-20. I am down to 2700.

Qc3h on button. alluna1 limps from middle position. I raise to 80 on button Flop is As 6h Jc. I bet 1/2 pot and he calls. I am worried about a slow play. Turn is a 3d. He checks again and I bet 1/2 pot. River is Qs. I have lucked into two pair. What would he call with? I can't imagine anything that doesn't beat me. Even though I would rather not show down this hand, I check behind. He had KJ and I am at 3,140 in chips.

I am not going to live blog every hand this time, because it saps too much mental energy. I'll just give you the highlights.

I picked up AA right after another player went broke with it in the previous hand. Mine was uneventful as I got one called preflop and he folded on the flop.

9s9c in middle position. Anthoover is big stack with 6k. He raises to 105, I call behind him. Flop is 4d 9d 7d. So I have top set but there is 3 to a flush out there. He checks and I bet 140. He check raises to 390. I call. The flop is 3c. He bets 600 and I call. The river is Tc and he bets 1,700 which will only leave me with 400 if I call and I am beat. I take my full time bank amount and eventually fold.

He played it strong the entire way so either he flopped the flush or he had AA with the Ace of diamonds. After folding I am left with 2,150 in chips. The good thing is I only lost 1,095 chips and I still have plenty left. The bad part is that I am now on tilt because I really wanted to board to pair so I could double up. It just felt too early to make the hero call.

Edit inserted 6-26-09. I ran this hand through poker stove and assigned the villain TT-AA, some pocket pairs with just a diamond, and some high cards with diamonds. I was at least a 3-1 favorite against his range. I posted the hand on 2+2 and it was unanimous that I should have raised the flop or the turn and tried to get my whole stack in the middle. Note to self: Never fold top set in a tournament, you're not good enough to lay it down.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: braminc ($3,000)
Seat 2: amy6695 ($2,930)
Seat 4: alluna1 ($1,560)
Seat 5: gwashyg ($2,140)
Seat 6: VirtualDevil ($2,770) -
Seat 7: Ant3h00ver2 ($7,840) -
Seat 8: Poker_Bully1 ($2,090) -
Seat 9: BTown99 ($4,610)

PRE-FLOP:

Ant3h00ver2 posts small blind $20
Poker_Bully1 posts BIG blind $40
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

FOLD BTown99
FOLD braminc
FOLD amy6695
FOLD alluna1
FOLD gwashyg
FOLD VirtualDevil
CALL Ant3h00ver2 ($20)
RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($150)
CALL Ant3h00ver2 ($110)

I think the raise is standard in position.

FLOP:

Pot: $300

CHECK Ant3h00ver2
BET Poker_Bully1 ($160)
CALL Ant3h00ver2 ($160)

I continuation bet here about 100% of the time so even though Ant3hoover2 does not really know my game, I can guess that he may float me here.

TURN:

Pot: $620

CHECK Ant3h00ver2
BET Poker_Bully1 ($360)
CALL Ant3h00ver2 ($360)

I pick up the inside straight draw. There might be an argument for checking back here since I could get raised off a decent hand. At the time I felt like I needed the chips in the middle and this was the only way to get them.
RIVER:

Pot: $1340

CHECK Ant3h00ver2
CHECK Poker_Bully1 I save my bullets for a different hand

SHOWDOWN:
Poker_Bully1:

Ant3h00ver2:
Did he really just call me with bottom pair and then a crappy flush draw on the turn???? Now I am really on tilt because maybe I should have got all my money in with the set of 9's earlier.

Ant3h00ver2 collected $1340 from main pot with two pair, Kings and Threes

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $1 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: braminc didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: amy6695 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: alluna1 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: gwashyg didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: VirtualDevil button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 7: Ant3h00ver2 small blind showed [2s 3s] and won 1,340 with two pair, Kings and Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($670)

Seat 8: Poker_Bully1 big blind showed [7d Ah] and lost with a pair of Kings - Net Gain/Loss: ($-670)
Seat 9: BTown99 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

Here is a nice comeback hand:

Seat 1: braminc ($3,075) -
Seat 2: amy6695 ($2,930)
Seat 4: alluna1 ($1,560)
Seat 5: gwashyg ($2,140)
Seat 6: VirtualDevil ($2,770)
Seat 7: Ant3h00ver2 ($8,510)
Seat 8: Poker_Bully1 ($1,395) -
Seat 9: BTown99 ($4,560) -

PRE-FLOP:

BTown99 posts small blind $25
braminc posts BIG blind $50
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

RAISE amy6695 ($175)
FOLD alluna1
FOLD gwashyg
FOLD VirtualDevil
FOLD Ant3h00ver2
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($175)
FOLD BTown99
FOLD braminc

FLOP:

Pot: $425

BET amy6695 ($250)
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($250)

TURN:

Pot: $925

CHECK amy6695
CHECK Poker_Bully1

RIVER:

Pot: $925

BET amy6695 ($500)
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($500)

SHOWDOWN:
amy6695:

Poker_Bully1:

Poker_Bully1 collected $1925 from main pot with a full house, Queens full of Tens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $1 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: braminc big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-50)
Seat 2: amy6695 showed [Ad Jh] and lost with three of a kind, Queens - Net Gain/Loss: ($-925)

Seat 4: alluna1 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: gwashyg didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: VirtualDevil didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 7: Ant3h00ver2 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: Poker_Bully1 button showed [Ts Td] and won 1,925 with a full house, Queens full of Tens - Net Gain/Loss: ($1000)
Seat 9: BTown99 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-25)

Playing small ball and not reraising on the button, wins me some extra chips when my opponent bluffs into me on the river. I did have to think about it a little while on the river since somebody could play KK or AA the same way as he played it.

I have 2,420 in chips and the blinds are 25-50. I pick up 77 in the small blind. It's folded to me and I raise to 150 and BTown99 calls in the BB. The flop is Jd 3d 2s. I bet 160 and he raises me to 500. I fold. Blech!

The very next hand, I call a raise from early position with Qh Jc on the button. The flop is 3h 3c Ts. The preflop raiser leads out for 200. I think about bluffing but decide to fold.

New table. 30-60 blinds and I have 2,070 in chips. Not the best of starts.

They barely broke even with 3,614 entries. At least bubble boy gets $3,500 for his troubles.

Also there is a $200 bounty if you bust a pro again this year.

I raise a couple of pots and win with c-bets on the flop. I lose a couple of pots when I get raised off my c-bets on the flop. My stack has dwindled down to 1,620. The blinds have gone up to 40-80.

First time I am all in. I have AhTh in cutoff. Salavas who has chip lead at our table raises to 280. I reraise all in to 1,620. He claims to have an Ace but he folds it. Whew! Blinds are now up to 50-100 and I have 2,020 in chips.

It is folded to me on the button and my blind steal with 84o goes terribly awry. I am left with 1,170 in chips. All in or fold mode now I guess.

Blinds are up again to 60-120. I have 1,020 chips to start. Salavas raises to 360. I come over top all in for 1,020. I have AsQs and this is the second time I have pulled this move on him. Everyone folds.

Next hand I pick up KJo. I open raise to 360 and everyone folds to me. I win the blinds again. I am up to 1,740. I have a little breathing room. The blinds go to 80-160 in 8 minutes.

Here is when disaster strikes:

Seat 1: Horus MARVI ($3,533)
Seat 2: crunchtime1 ($3,185)
Seat 3: Pascha777 ($3,277)
Seat 4: Salavas ($12,098) -
Seat 5: i hd lotsa outs ($3,200) -
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 ($1,740) -
Seat 7: akaono ($5,436)
Seat 8: BALA51 ($4,096)
Seat 9: Bluffinger ($4,376)

PRE-FLOP:

i hd lotsa outs posts small blind $60
Poker_Bully1 posts BIG blind $120
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

FOLD akaono
FOLD BALA51
FOLD Bluffinger
FOLD Horus MARVI
FOLD crunchtime1
FOLD Pascha777
RAISE Salavas ($420)
FOLD i hd lotsa outs
RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($1740)
CALL Salavas ($1320)

This is the third time I have reraised Salavas so I know for sure that he is calling. I am hoping for a weaker Ace. I get my wish (sort of).

FLOP:

Pot: $3540

TURN:

Pot: $3540

RIVER:

Pot: $3540

SHOWDOWN:
Poker_Bully1:

Salavas:

Salavas collected $3540 from main pot with two pair, Aces and Tens

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $3 Rake: $0

Final Board:

Seat 1: Horus MARVI didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: crunchtime1 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: Pascha777 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Salavas button showed [As Th] and won 3,540 with two pair, Aces and Tens - Net Gain/Loss: ($1800)

Seat 5: i hd lotsa outs small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-60)
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 big blind showed [Kd Ah] and lost with a pair of Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1740)
Seat 7: akaono didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: BALA51 didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: Bluffinger didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

I am done in 2,295th place. Sigh!!!

I have put a big dent in the bankroll over the last month and I am still planning on going to Vegas over 4th of July. I am 90% certain that I may take a break from poker for the next week and just concentrate on my golf and tennis games. I think I need to clear my head for a while.

I also don't know if I will try to play one of the super satellites at the WSOP. May bankroll may not be able to afford it.

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try Try Again

2009-06-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

I played in the first big Main Event Seat giveaway on Poker Stars last Sunday. 8021 players for 233 seats.

I started out pretty well. I was never below my starting stack and was slowly chipping up without any show downs. Unfortunately I got no action at all when I picked up AA, KK, or even QQ.

Eventually I went broke when the blinds got high and I reraised my 10 BB stack with AK and ran into pocket Kings. No Ace for me and I finished in 2101st place.

Next Sunday is the Full Tilt 150 seat guarantee that I won last year. Over the last month, Full Tilt has definitely been a luckier site for me, as I have basically run through 75% of my bankroll on Poker Stars but have been steadily increasing my balance on Full Tilt.

My big concern is that even if I win a seat, I may not be able to get my money off the site to pay for the entry. The Department of Justice froze $33 Million of poker players money at a couple of big banks including Wells Fargo and Alliance Arizona bank. They are trying to claim it is their right under the wire Act of 61 but this is the first time the DOJ has gone after poker players. Usually they have targeted the sports betting sites.

I put in a request for a withdrawal on Full Tilt and they mentioned that it may take 15-20 business days for the money to show in my account. When I tried to make a deposit on Poker Stars I had to use a new payment processor called Click2Pay. Somehow they actually got the money from my Visa card. That hasn't happened since the old Party Poker days.

Last night I planned out my satellite strategy to enter the big tournament on Sunday. I found the $109 satellite is running at 7:45 PM every night this week, so that looked like a good value since they were guaranteeing 5 seats in each one.

Luckily (or perhaps skillfully) I won my seat in my first attempt. Once again, I was amazed at the stupidity of the play on the bubble. Here is the best example:

There are 8 players left for 7 spots. sassybtch2 has 22,445 in chips which is twice the amount of the next closest player. Everyone else is stuck between 11 and 15 BB with the blinds being 250-500 with 50 ante. sassybtch2 has been very active playing nearly 60% of his hands.

I don't think sassy's strategy was optimal when he was a medium stack, but he worked up to the chip leader so now I think being active is ok if you are smart about it. Just raise preflop to steal the blinds or take a stab at the flop. If you encounter resistance then let it go and protect your chips. He is virtually guaranteed a seat if he just sits out, so there is no need to push marginal hands.

Jpeters9 has 8415 in chips in the hijack seat. He open raises to 2,300. sassy calls from the cutoff like he had done a bunch of times in the last 20 minutes. He could have literally any two cards. Everyone else folds.

There is 5,750 in the pot and the flop is Ah 3c Js. Jpeters9 makes a weak bet of 1500 and sassy min raises to 3000. Jpeters9 reraises all in for 6,115. sassybtch2 is priced in to call and he does.

So what two hands do you think these players would have? I am initially thinking that Jpeters should have at a minimum Ace-King or Ace-Queen. The flop was played horrible because the small bet is just begging to be raised. If you have a good hand, especially against the big stack who is obviously looking to make thin calls to try and bust someone, bet all in and get paid.

Instead Jpeters9 rolls over As 7d and sassy btch has Jc Ts. What the hell? The best part was the turn was a Ten and Jpeters was eliminated.

I had picked up Aces under the gun earlier in the final table. I had raised and sassy had called. The flop was 9-T-J with two suits. I check folded. I picked up AQo in early position and raised. An equal sized stack reraised all in quickly. I folded without a second thought. You have to play hands that you have a much better chance of winning than the chances of just folding your way into a seat. My hands were too risky and my patience paid off.

I really wish Full Tilt or Poker Stars would just run "double up" or "triple up" sit and gos where they are run like a satellite. I could make so much money.

Live Blogging $650 PokerStars Main Event Qualifier

2009-06-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

The tournament starts at 3:00 PM. At least 25 seats to the Main Event of the World Series of Poker will be awarded.

I am warming up by playing 2 tables of 1-2 No Limit and getting cold decked. I hope I get the bad beats out of my system before the big one starts.

Start of Tournament:

No problem making the guarantees. It looks like there will be around 45 seats up for grabs.

Blinds 10-20 and start with 3k in chips.

66 in small blind. I call with 2 other players. I lead at small flop and win small pot.

AJo on button. I call a middle pos raise from slimshaggy. Flop has a Js-5s-3c. He checks and I bet 100 to take it down. 3,120 in chips now.

I just checked Poker Tracker and I am down $185 in the cash game. I cut back to one table while I play the tournament and blog. I think I am playing well, I just need to have a little luck on my side to make it back.

9s7s in small blind. I call with 5 others. Flop is A-T-3. I check fold.

6d6c in cutoff. Broomcorn09 limps in early position. I raise to $80. Everyone folds and Broomcorn09 calls. 190 in the pot. Flop is Qh-8c-3h. Broom donk bets 80. I raise to 220 and win the pot. I have found when the play is deep, that these donk bets tend to be weak and I can play position to win these pots. Chips to 3,240. Blinds now up to 15-30.

7hTd in cutoff. michellefox limps from early position and it folds to me. I have already seen her limp with crap. I raise to isolate, but Tight Mind in the button calls behind me. Flop is 5d-Js-3c. I take a stab at it and get raised. Down to 2,925.

I pick up 44 in middle position. I open raise to 90. Two players call behind me and the BB comes along as well. The flop is T-2-2. I check and there is a bet and call behind me. I hate my hand so I let it go.

98o on button. I call a raise from slimshaggy and the BB comes along as well. Flop is 3s-Tc-Kc. Checked to slim and he cbets 150. I decide to float it and call. Turn is an Ace and slimshaggy bets again. That is not a good card for me because if he was bluffing before, he just hit the Ace. If he's not bluffing, I'm pretty sure he's ready to go with the hand. I fold.

I call another raise with KQs in a multi way pot. The flop misses me entirely and I let it go. Down to 2,335 in chips. Blinds are 20-40.

Blinds up to 25-50. I am at 2,355. slimshaggy looks to be a good player. I saw him play position and make a good bluff.

Total prize pool looks to be $581,175. That equals 48 seats. I hope I pick up a hand soon.

5h4d on button. It's folded to me and the small blind is sitting out. I raise to 150. superowl99 calls. Flop is 8c-7h-3s. He checks and I check. Turn is 2d. He checks and I semibluff my double gutter at bet 200. He calls. The river is 6s. I make my straight but it's far from the nuts. superowl99 leads into me for 300. I call and he shows Jc9c for a busted straight draw. I climb back up to 2,955.

We are at the first break. 953 players and 809 are still alive. There will be 48 prize packages, 49th-63rd get their money back, and 64th gets $345. So I need to make the final 9 tables out of the 90 tables that are currently running.

I gotta say I am not too pleased with my table draw. There is only one soft seat that I have picked out. I have a guy who likes to call my raises directly to my left. Blinds when we get back will be 30-60.

JcTc in BB. superowl99 limps utg + 1and mikeschmike raises in early position to 240. I reluctantly call and superowl comes along. Flop is Jh-Th-6d. I check to go for check raise. My plan is foiled as it gets checked through. The turn is a 2 and I lead for 500. They both fold. Stack back up to 3,435.

Just got moved to a new table. I pick up A8o in the cutoff. I raise and take the blinds.

4:25 PM - Blinds up to 40-80. 757 players left. Average stack is 3,776 and I have 3,465.

AKo and I raise and win blinds.

QJs in sb. It's folded to me and I raise to 240. BB calls. Flop is A-7-7. I make a bet of 320 and he folds.

JdJc on button. There is a min raise and a call before it gets to me. I screw up and just call. Flop is Qs-2d-3d. Cutoff who called initial raise makes it 540 and I fold like a girl. I should have reraised big since neither stack could eliminate me.

Blinds up to 50-100 with 10 ante.

5d7d. I limp after two others and more come for the ride. Flop is 8d Jc Kc. Short stack goes broke when he flops top two against demonseed14's set of 8's. I fold and miss all the fun.

7d8d in middle position. I open raise and win the blinds.

AcAh under the gun. I raise to 300. It's folded around to DikHurtz in BB who calls. Flop is all low cards. I bet 520 and he folds. Up to 3,915 in chips now.

Blinds 60-120 ante 15. I pick up TT on button. I open raise to 360 and win the blinds.

89o in middle late position. I open raise and win the blinds. 4,180 in chips. My personal high but still 500 below chip average.

5s4d on button. I open raise and Scoobysmurf reraises to 800 in the small blind. I am priced in to call so I do. Flop misses and I fold to his c-bet. Down to 3,120 in chips.

QJo in middle position. I raise and win the blinds.

QcJc in early position. I open raise and get called by Scooby right behind me. Flop is As-7s-3h. I make a c-bet of 635 and take it down. Back up to 4050 in chips.

I made it to the second break. 3,915 in chips. 541 players left with average stack at 5,284.

Blinds are 75-150 with 20 ante. 4h4d in cutoff. stpauli111 raises to 445 under the gun. demonseed14 calls and I call. The BB comes as well. Flop is 9c-4s-6c. stpauli leads out for 715 into a 2035 pot. My first instinct is to raise buy I will have to go all in with my stack size. I decide to call. Everyone else folds. The turn is the case 4 of clubs!!!!. stpauli pushes all in and I snap call for all my chips. He rolls over KcQh and I win a $8705 pot!!

CASH GAME ALERT
I have crawled back to up $20 after stacking a bad player with a set of 5's. I am suddenly running well.

Back to the tournament....

7s9c in cutoff. I open raise and get called by button and and Big Blind. Flop is a whiff and I decide to save my chips. Button bets and takes it down.

4h4c in middle position. I call an early raise to 450. I get squeezed by KingKnig on button and have to fold. So much for my rush.

Sitting on 7,340 in chips. Blinds up to 100-200 with 25 ante.

As8h on BB. It's folded around to the button elipse who raises to 600. I defend and reraise to 2000. He calls. Ugh! Flop is Ac 5c 4s. I ponder for a bit. I decide to bet 2,200 and fold to an all in raise. He thinks for a long time and finally folds. I am up to 9,570.

AcKc on button. elipse open raises to 600 again from late position. I don't feel like flipping with AK so I just call. The blinds fold. The flop is 3c 9h 3h and it goes check-check. Turn is a 6s. elipse bets a small and I call hoping for a free showdown. The river is the 5c and he bets 800 and I decide he is trying to slow play something and I fold.

KsQd in cutoff. Blinds are up to 125-250 with 30 ante. I open raise to 750 and Scoobysmurf calls behind me on the button. I have him covered in chips. Flop is 6s 4s 4d. I make a c-bet of 1,200 and he folds. Chips at 9,625.

QhJh in small blind. yell4UT limps in middle position. It's folded to me and I decide to raise to 1k. He reraises me to 2,500. I decide to play it safe and fold. He shows AA.

A little while later, he raises to 1000 under the gun. I pick up AKo in late position and move all in. He folds.

KTo I open raise and win the blinds. Chips at 10,335 now.

I am having ribs while I play. They are delicious. Thanks wifey.

Ah9d in BB. The small stack demonseed moves all in from the cutoff for 740. I call and he rolls over QQ. I don't hit the Ace and give him some chips.

Blinds are 150-300 with 40 ante. I have 9,305 in chips.

4d3s on button. I open raise and get shoved on buy sb, then the BB shoves over him. I fold. SB had 55 and BB had 88.

Very next hand, the bigstack DikHurtz limps for 300 and I raise to 1200 with AJo. yell4UT then pushes all in for 3,591. DikHurtz folds and I have to call 2300 innto a 5671 pot. I have the odds but I don't want to be that low in chips. I fold. Down to 6,315 in chips.

261 players left. Average stack is 10,954.

AhTh under the gun. I raise to 900. Folded to DikHurtz who pushes all in on me. I fold again. Dammit!!!!
Good thing we just hit the break. Next level is 200-400 with 50 ante. It might be push/fold time.

I am at 4,525 in chips with the blinds at 200-400 with 50 ante.

KcJc in middle position. All in. No callers. Stack to 5,425.

I've been moved to a new table.

5s7s in cutoff. All in. No callers. Stack at 5,575. In 9 minutes we lost 43 players! Down to 217.

Blinds up again to 250-500 with 60 ante. I got to give it to PokerStars. Their structure is great. Now if the random number generator would just give me some cards.

AJo under the gun. All in and I win the blinds. Stack is 6085 after paying the BB.

Ks7h on button. I open raise all in and win the blinds. $6,945 in chips.

Very next hand I pick up Aces. A big stack makes it 1200 to go. I min raise to 2500. He shoves all in and I call. He shows pocket Kings. C'mon baby! Flop is Ks Th 5s. FUCK!!!! Turn is 8c and River is 8 of spades and I am out in 194th place. That hand would have put me at 15,180 and in decent shape.

;KASDNF;QO'EFHQE;OEWHFQOE';HE AAAHHHHHHH

I'll have to try again next week.

Satellite Madness

2009-06-01T21:38:00.001-07:00

I have been playing quite a bit of satellites lately. I am killing the small ones and I am 0 for 1 on the big ones.

I wish that Full Tilt had some kind of exchange program for T$ because I could play the $75 satellites into their $215 weekend tournaments all the time. They get done in a little over 2 hours and I win my ticket half the time I play.

I am 2 for 3 in the $80 for the $650 Main Event Satellites on Poker Stars. I played my first big tournament last weekend.

I started out well, running my initial stack of $3000 into $4500 pretty easily. Then I got lost in a hand with Ace-King and had to lay it down after my opponent check raised my bluff on the flopafter half of my stack went in before the flop, when I whiffed. After that I went broke a few hands later, when I tried to squeeze a raiser and a caller with Ace-Queen. The caller re-raised all in. I figured he must have a low to medium pocket pair so I called hoping to win the race. Instead he flipped up Ace-King and I did not luckbox into a 3 outer.

My next attempt at qualifying for the Main Event is Sunday at 3:00 PM.

If I had a choice, I would much rather qualify on Poker Stars. Besides the seat in the Main Event, they give you a hotel room at the Palms, a free party at the night club, Supernova VIP status on their site for a year, and I think $3,000 in spending money. All Full Tilt gives you is the seat plus $2,000. You would think they would try to keep up with Poker Stars but they don't seem very concerned about it.

Consistent Money Maker

2009-05-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

I have been playing a $55 satellite to the $215 Sunday tournament on Full Tilt. They run it every night at 7:40 PM and it usually only gets 50 or so players. The players are donktastic and they have no idea on satellite strategy.

I have not been keeping track, but I believe I have been cashing in at least half of the tournaments I have played in.

It's no secret, but the main game plan in these tournaments is to accumulate chips early and then when it gets down to the bubble, tighten up. If they are giving away 10 seats and there are 12-13 players left, there is no reason to play a hand if you have a medium or large size stack. Just sit back and let the others blow themselves up.

It is also important to not let yourself get blinded down so low, that you lose your fold equity. If you are down to 8-10 Big Blinds and it is near the end, it is pretty easy to push all in in the right spots and not get called. After all, a majority of the other players are playing super tight, waiting to get their seat.

I had been meaning to write this post for a few days. Of course after I think about it, I play in a tournament last night and bust out early. I don't think it was too bad of a play since I had the second nuts. The board read 7d-9d-6s and I had 78o. The BB checked and I bet. The BB and one other player called. The turn was a 2c. It was checked around. The river was a 10h giving me a straight. The big blind led out and I just called, then the last player raised all in. The BB folded and it was up to me. It just seemed so unlikely that someone would have J-8 there. Then I thought it might be suited, that would make sense. But I have seen so many bad plays that I felt it was worth it to call. My opponent turned over the Jd8d and IGHN.

Before I got started I had fired up a game of 1-2 No Limit on Full Tilt. My very first hand in the BB I picked up pocket Aces. Middle position raises and late position reraises. I put in the 3rd raise and the initial player moves all in. The other player folds and I snap call. He has two Kings. My Aces hold up and I am immediately up $224. I believe that is the first time I have ever done that.

Unfortunately I was not enough of a Jack Ass to hit and run after one hand so I did lose some of it back. In spite of the set back in the tournament, I finished the night up $144 so it was another successful session.

Dream Dealer WSOP Satellite

2009-05-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

My friend Jeff and his Dream Dealers tried to organize a satellite to send a couple of players to the World Series. His original dream was to get enough players at $200 a player to give away a Main Event seat. I did not have as high of hopes, but we did manage to get enough players to give away two $1500 packages.

We started with 18 players at two tables, $2000 in chips and 5-10 starting blinds. The levels were 25 minutes long. This may seem like a decent amount of play, but with players taking the game seriously there were a lot of long pondering decisions so we were only playing around 10 hands per level.

I started out well by winning the very first hand with King-Jack when I flopped a Jack and rivered a King. I did not get paid off on the river, but it was a decent $400 pot.

After that, there was a whole lot of missing flops and folding. Then I tried a silly bluff and gave away half my chips.

I had 66 in late position. I limped in with 3 others and saw a flop of 9-10-J. It was checked around and I checked behind. The turn was a Queen. The early player led out and the other two players folded. I had a feeling that I still had the best hand, but there were so many cards that could come on the river that would scare me, that I didn't know what to do.

I came up with the idea to raise him small and that way I could probably get to a free showdown at the river. I made the raise and he called me fairly quickly. This told me he did not have the straight. The river was another blank. My opponent checked. So I get the "free showdown", but instead of checking, I decide that I want to follow through and bluff again. I make another bet of about half the pot and he calls me down with J-T for two pair.

It may sound like I'm being results oriented when I say this was a bad bluff, but it really was.

So I sat on my 20 BB short stack for a while and studied the rest of the table. Eventually we hit the end of the rebuy period and I took the add on for another $2,000 in chips. The chip leader, David, was playing a lot of hands and was getting pretty lucky. I knew that if I could pick up a good hand that he was somebody that I would have to value bet hard, because he was willing to call a lot of chips with hands as bad as second pair.

Eventually I picked up pocket 3's under the gun. I limped and hoped everyone else would do the same. My wish was granted as 3 others came along for the ride. The flop was A-8-3. I checked and David bet 500. I had about 2500 left in my stack and I figured the best way to get all my money in the pot would be to min raise on the flop and then put the rest in on the turn. I raise to 1000 but David does me a favor and puts me all in. I snap call and David shows 8-3 suited. He had flopped bottom two pair and I had somehow hit the only other 3 in the deck to get my dominating hand.

I dodged his 2 outs and doubled up. I won a couple of small pots and was really starting to roll. I had 9,500 in chips with the blinds at 200-400.

Then I picked up Ace-King in the small blind. A decent player limped and David came along. I raised to 1,200. The decent player called and David folded. $3,200 in the pot and the flop was 8-9-3. I make the continuation bet of $1,500 and my opponent moves all in for $3,800. So it's $2,300 more to call in a $8,500 pot. I am getting 3.7 to 1 to make the call. If I make it and lose, I am down to 4,400 in chips which is still kind of playable, but the blinds will go to 300-600 in a few hands.

If my Aces and Kings are clean outs then I have 6 outs with 39 cards that do not help. According to the odds I have a 23% chance to win. The problem is that I could also be drawing dead if he has a set of 3', 8's, or 9's. I laid it down which I am still not sure if that was wise. He showed me pocket 2's. Good play on his part.

This left me pretty short when the blinds went up. I eventually moved all in from the cutoff with K-8. The same player who beat me with the pocket 2's was in the big blind. He hemmed and hawed for a minute and muttered how bad this call would be. He finally made it with J-9. Wow that's horrible! I tried to put the karma in my favor by also betting my last 3 tip chips, but he came over the top of me with $10 in tip chips. The top card in the window of the flop was a Jack and I could not spike the King. I was out in 8th place.

The good news is that Jeff set up this tournament so that the two people that end up going to Vegas will have to split 25% of their winnings with the other losers from the tournament. That means there is an extremely small chance that I might win some of my money back. We'll see if they actually go to Vegas.

Winning it all Back

2009-04-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

I ran much better last night online. Here are some of the highlights.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: CarlHaris ($356.85) -
Seat 2: PokherButt007 ($197) -
Seat 3: Luffy-san ($41)
Seat 4: Jordan Morgan ($239.75)
Seat 5: TsirhCitna ($264.90)
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 ($287.70) -

PRE-FLOP:

CarlHaris posts small blind $1
PokherButt007 posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

FOLD Luffy-san
RAISE Jordan Morgan ($7) Yes I am playing with a Full Tilt Red Pro. It was also an Educational table so I thought he may be trying to make a video. Then I looked in the lobby and saw he was playing 12 tables so no video, he's trying to make money.
FOLD TsirhCitna
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($7) I want to see a flop in position so no reraise.
FOLD CarlHaris
FOLD PokherButt007

FLOP:

Pot: $17

BET Jordan Morgan ($11)
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($11) Not a great flop for me, but I'm sure Jordan is continuation betting against me around 90% of the time. I may still have the best hand so I call.

TURN:

Pot: $39

CHECK Jordan Morgan
BET Poker_Bully1 ($24) Jordan shows weakness. Plus it is easy to make this look like I called the flop with Jack-Ten and now I have the straight. I turn my pocket tens into a bluff and take down the pot.
FOLD Jordan Morgan
UNCALLED Poker_Bully1 ($24)
MUCK Poker_Bully1

Poker_Bully1 collected $37.05 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $39 Rake: $1.95

Final Board:

Seat 1: CarlHaris small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 2: PokherButt007 big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)
Seat 3: Luffy-san didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Jordan Morgan folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-18)
Seat 5: TsirhCitna didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 button collected 37.05, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($19.05)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: CarlHaris ($355.85) -
Seat 2: PokherButt007 ($195) -
Seat 3: Luffy-san ($41) -
Seat 4: Jordan Morgan ($221.75)
Seat 5: TsirhCitna ($264.90)
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 ($306.75)

PRE-FLOP:

PokherButt007 posts small blind $1
Luffy-san posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

FOLD Jordan Morgan
FOLD TsirhCitna
RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($7)
RAISE CarlHaris ($21)
FOLD PokherButt007
FOLD Luffy-san
RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($50)
RAISE CarlHaris ($355.85) I actually considered folding here because this player had solid stats and I had not seen him get out of line. I used some of my time bank and mustered up the courage to call.
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($256.75)
UNCALLED CarlHaris ($49.10)

FLOP:

Pot: $616.5

TURN:

Pot: $616.5

RIVER:

Pot: $616.5

SHOWDOWN:
CarlHaris:
WHAT THE F*** IS HE DOING? Thanks for the gift.
Poker_Bully1:

Poker_Bully1 collected $613.5 from main pot with two pair, Kings and Twos

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $616 Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: CarlHaris button showed [9c Qc] and lost with a pair of Twos - Net Gain/Loss: ($-306.75)

Seat 2: PokherButt007 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 3: Luffy-san big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)
Seat 4: Jordan Morgan didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: TsirhCitna didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 showed [Kd Kh] and won 613.50 with two pair, Kings and Twos - Net Gain/Loss: ($306.75)

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I finished the quick session up $430 for one of my best online cash sessions ever.

Lots of Losses

2009-04-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

The downswing started on Thursday last week when I stopped in Casino Arizona after work and played some 3-6 limit poker with Kory. I gave Kory my book on Small Stakes Hold’em by Ed Miller and David Sklansky to borrow. Kory is fired up after reading some of the concepts and is trying to apply them to his game. I am happy to come along and offer any guidance that I can.

I liked the table that we ended up at, but I was not running well. The main pot that got me steaming a little was a strange one.

I limped under the gun with a suited Ace. A bunch of people called including an old man on my left and a middle aged gentleman on my right. I flopped the nut heart flush. I don’t remember the exact cards since it was a few days ago, but I remember that they were between 5-10 so there were straight possibilities out there. Since there were so many players in the pot, I figured I would check and see how many players would like to come along before I make a decision on raising.

The old man bet and 3 others called including myself. The turn brought another heart. Again in an effort to disguise my hand, I checked. The betting was the same. Now this old guy was pretty passive, so the straight flush possibility was already in my head. After all it was a little strange that 3 players were still in the hand with 4 of the same suit on the board.

The river was the 5th heart and now it put a 4 to a straight flush on the board. Now I am really worried about the straight flush. I figure I’ll check call. I check and the old man re-checks his cards, and then hesitates for about 15 seconds. While he is thinking, he subtly moves his right hand up and down in a checking motion. The player on my right (button) thinks he checks and goes to turn over his hand. I also pick up my cards but do not show them, when the old man exclaims that he did not check. The dealer asks if we want to call the floor. Me and the button both agree to let it slide. The old man now bets and the button calls.

I’m not afraid of the button call because I saw he had the Queen of Hearts so I know I have him beat. I think to myself that the only reason the old man would think so long was that he had a non-nut flush and was wondering if he should save his money. I convince myself that I am right and put in a raise. The old man immediately re-raises. The button realizes he’s beat and folds and I make the crying call. The old man ran a Hollywood angle shoot on me and I fell for it.

I took a break to go to the ATM and while I was up, I decided to put my name on the list for the new 1-2 max 500 game. I was called to the game about 15 minutes later and left Kory on his own to fight the old man.

This was one of the few times that I followed my system in limit hold-em where I got up after losing a buy in and changed tables. I think when I am losing, my table image becomes very bad and players are willing to chase more hands against me because they feel like I am on a losing streak and they will get lucky. It often becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. In order to win any of my money back in limit poker, I need to be able to run a successful semi-bluff once in a while to pick up a pot or two while I wait for a strong hand to get paid off.

Instead of switching limit tables, though I went to the new No Limit game. I immediately ran into what I think was pocket Aces after I reraised him with AQ suited. He reraised the minimum which forced me to call. The flop missed me and he made a 1/3 size of the pot bet, seemingly begging me for a call. I let it go and the two players on my right were nice enough to let me now that he was the tightest player at the table.

I was also amused that of the nine players in the game, I think there was only one player older than me. I think a couple of the players were not even 21 yet. I think you are allowed to gamble at 18 or 19 on the Indian Casinos but I am not sure about that. After that brief set back, I broke even for the rest of the session.

Sunday was a home tournament day. Jeff and his Dream Dealers were hosting a game at a house in McCormick Ranch. The original buy in was to be $150 but he was not generating enough interest. He lowered it to $100 and he managed to wrangle up 12 players.

There were some familiar faces from Jeff’s previous tournaments, but the one semi-celebrity was Kevin O’Donnell. Kevin has won over $1,000,000 in large buy in poker tournaments over the years and finished 21st in World Series of Poker Main Event in 2006. He seemed like a nice guy and was taking the game pretty seriously. This is never good news.

We started with 1000 chips and the blinds were 5-10. The levels were to last 25 minutes but there were some slight modifications along the way. We originally started 11 handed until the last player showed up about 10 minutes into the first level.

I was going to try and play fast and aggressive since it looked like the blinds would come up pretty fast. I did some bluffing from the button and I won some small pots and lost some others.

My highlight was pulling off a great bluff against a player named Keith. Keith has won a few of Jeff’s events and is a pretty good player. I open raised with 4c5c on the button and Keith called in the small blind. The flop was 6h-7d-Jh. Keith checked and I made a continuation bet of 70% of the pot. He made a quick call. The turn was a King of clubs. He checked again, and this time I had about a pot sized bet left in my stack. Since two of my straight outs might be dirty with flush draw out there, I wanted to end the hand now. Plus I felt like he was drawing and I might be able to get him off his hand. I pushed all in. Keith looked very pained. I thought he was going to call when he started doing math in his head. Then he looked directly at me and asked if I had a “made” hand. I responded, “yes, absolutely.” He bought it and folded. Of course I had to show him the bluff and the whole table hooted and hollered.

I lost some of those chips right back, and then I picked up ATo. I raised and the BB who had a big stack min raised me. It was the last hand before the break and the blinds were about to double. I felt like this was my chance to get some utility back so I pushed all in. He called me with 77. I hit a ten on the flop and had doubled up.

I took the $1,000 add on and had about $2,500 in chips going into the 50-100 level. There were 9 players left and the top three were getting paid. First place would be $1,100. I mainly folded for the first level at the final table and then the blinds went up to 100-200.

Now I am getting short and a few others at the table were starting to make the all in preflop moves. Finally at UTG+1 I pick up AKo. Jeff limped under the gun and I pushed all in for $2,400. A short stack of 800 called and then Kevin O’Donnell started complaining. “I know he’s got Jacks. I can’t beat Jacks. That’s the only hand he would do that with.” He talked himself into calling with pocket tens. The short stack had AQ so one of my outs was gone. We ran out the board and I missed everything. Kevin even spiked a ten on the river for an extra twist of the knife.

If I win that hand I knock out two players including the best one at the table and I have a good stack to work with. Instead I am out in 9th place. Kevin went on the chop the final prize with Keith after playing for a half hour heads up.

So after losing $220 in the tournament, I was feeling very unsatisfied. After my family went to bed, I decided to play some 1-2 NL on Full Tilt and try and make it back. This turned out to be a bad idea as well. Here were a few hands to relive.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Tweelingen ($285.45) -
Seat 2: Poker_Bully1 ($202)
Seat 3: count_to_ten ($80)
Seat 4: artofniza ($323.20)
Seat 5: jolohu ($252.95) -
Seat 6: YukDaDuke ($200) -

PRE-FLOP:

YukDaDuke posts small blind $1
Tweelingen posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($9)
CALL count_to_ten ($7)
FOLD artofniza
CALL jolohu ($9)
FOLD YukDaDuke
CALL Tweelingen ($7)

Tweelingen was playing with a VPIP of 32% and raising 21% of the time so he was a little loose and aggressive.

FLOP:

Pot: $35

CHECK Tweelingen
BET Poker_Bully1 ($37) Build the pot and try to protect in case someone has the naked Ace of clubs
CALL count_to_ten ($37)
FOLD jolohu
RAISE Tweelingen ($276.45) Uh, oh. Now the big raise makes me think he has the flush but it's small and he's trying to protect.
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($156)
CALL count_to_ten ($34)
UNCALLED Tweelingen ($83.45)

TURN:

Pot: $492

RIVER:

Pot: $492

SHOWDOWN:
Tweelingen:
Horrible read by me. Nothing like getting over $200 into the pot drawing practically dead
Poker_Bully1:

count_to_ten:

Tweelingen collected $244 from side pot 1 with a flush, Ace highTweelingen collected $247 from main pot with a flush, Ace high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $494Main pot: $250
Side pot: $244
Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: Tweelingen big blind showed [Ac 7c] and won 491 with a flush, Ace high - Net Gain/Loss: ($289)

Seat 2: Poker_Bully1 showed [Kc Kh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Fours - Net Gain/Loss: ($-202)
Seat 3: count_to_ten showed [Jd 6d] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Fours - Net Gain/Loss: ($-78)

Seat 4: artofniza didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: jolohu button folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-9)
Seat 6: YukDaDuke small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)

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Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: artofniza ($643.30)
Seat 2: WHYME STILL ($274)
Seat 3: FSobotka ($37) -
Seat 4: Shabooz ($101.70) -
Seat 5: Upay4myM6 ($114.70) -
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 ($333.25)

PRE-FLOP:

Shabooz posts small blind $1
Upay4myM6 posts BIG blind $2
Dealt To: Poker_Bully1

RAISE Poker_Bully1 ($7)
FOLD artofniza
CALL WHYME STILL ($7)
FOLD FSobotka
CALL Shabooz ($6)
FOLD Upay4myM6

FLOP:

Pot: $23

CHECK Shabooz
BET Poker_Bully1 ($14)
RAISE WHYME STILL ($46) This player was playing pretty solid for the session. I don't think he called my raise with 4-7 or 2-4 so I put him on an over pair or a flush draw
FOLD Shabooz
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($32) No sense in raising since it may fold hands worse than mine.

TURN:

Pot: $115

BET Poker_Bully1 ($68) Now I can really make him pay to draw.
CALL WHYME STILL ($68)

RIVER:

Pot: $251

CHECK Poker_Bully1 And he gets there. I convince myself that there is a chance he's bluffing, since that's the only hand I can beat. Wrong again.
BET WHYME STILL ($153)
CALL Poker_Bully1 ($153)

SHOWDOWN:
WHYME STILL:

MUCK Poker_Bully1

WHYME STILL collected $554 from main pot with a flush, King high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $557 Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: artofniza didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: WHYME STILL showed [Jc Qc] and won 554 with a flush, King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($280)

Seat 3: FSobotka button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Shabooz small blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-7)
Seat 5: Upay4myM6 big blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-2)
Seat 6: Poker_Bully1 mucked [3h 3s] - three of a kind, Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-274)

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Changes At Casino Arizona

2009-04-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

For the first time in a month I made a visit to the Casino Arizona after work today. There are changes afoot.

Apparently they appealed to the state lawmakers and negotiated an increase in the maximum bet size. So in addition to $1,000 limits on the Black Jack tables they have changed some of the poker games.

The old "No Limit" game was really a spread limit game of 5-150. That means that the minimum bet was $5 and the maximum bet or raise was $150. The new bet limit is $500. So now they are running a 1-2 blind spread limit with the $500 max and a 3-5 blind spread limit with the same $500 cap.

These new games will play practically like true No-Limit cash games. There is good news and bad news for this change.

The bad news is that the old 5-150 game will probably die a quick death. This had become a very profitable game for me. My theory on the reason it was so profitable was that most players tried to treat it as a "No Limit" game. They were way too loose in calling raises with pocket pairs and suited connectors. It's fine to call with these hands if you can win your opponent's entire stack if you hit. But if you are limited to $150 increments and most of the players usually had less than $300 in front of them, your implied odds go way down.

The good news is that it will play like a true no limit game. I don't think I've ever made a $500 bet in a cash game so I think the it will be very rare that the limit is hit in the 1-2 game. Plus now I can play some of the speculative hands with the proper implied odds. Hopefully I play them better than my opponents and I can still make money in the game. I will also have the added benefit that the 1-2 game should attract more of the beginners and it is more appropriate for my bankroll.

In an ironic twist, I did not play any of these new games as I was there to meet Kory for some limit poker. I was up a quick $90 in a 4-8 game, but by the time Kory joined me at the table, I was only up $20. I managed to lose $73 for the session due to some bad cards and bad decisions.

All is right with the world though. After putting Jake to bed, I fired up Full Tilt and took $240 off the donkeys at .50-1 Pot Limit Omaha so it's another profitable day.

1st attempt at Qualifying for WSOP 2009

2009-04-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

I just entered a $69+6 satellite to the 150 Seat Main Event Guarantee on Full Tilt. It's a turbo tournament with 5 minute blind levels and you start with 1500 in chips. There are only 3 tables and 6 spots available.

Hey It's my lucky day. My table includes Scott Fischman, two time WSOP bracelet winner, and Svetlana Gromenkova, who won some big European tournament a while back. This sucks!

I joined in late and picked up JJ the very first hand. I raised and got two callers. An Ace flops but I bet anyway. The turn pairs the board and I am out of position so I check. The opponent checks it back. The river is a blank and I check hoping for a cheap showdown. My opponent min bets 30 and I call to see an A4o. Nice call preflop there. Down to 1190 from 1500 starting stack.

I raise AQ preflop, get called then reraised all in. I fold and watch 10-10 go against KK.

I pick up AK in blinds. There is a raise to 80 and a call. I shove for 900. The first raiser snap calls with AA and even though I pick up the inside straight draw on the flop and flush draw on the turn, I miss and I Go Home Now. I feel like I just lit $75 on fire.

Historically my first efforts at satellites have been poor and this one was no different.

Status Update

2009-03-31T21:08:00.000-07:00

My poker bankroll has been stuck at $5,000 for the last 4 months. The month of March ended with $5,122 which was down $15 from the end of February. This is in spite of having to pay Bill $500 from our golf bet. I consider my poker bankroll, my "gambling" bankroll so that's why the $500 came from that.

My golf handicap is still nowhere near 5. My index is 8.2. Part of the problem with my golf game is that I keep getting sucked into playing more Tennis. I am now a part of a USTA league on Wednesday nights and I am still playing as a sub for the ATA team on Saturdays. I have been more of a full timer than a sub since everyone seems to be going out of town every weekend except for me.

I have a very competitive nature. Long ago I decided to try and keep it in check by deciding that I would play golf seriously and tennis for fun. I don't have enough spare time in my life to practice both to get as good as I want to be. Lately the tennis has been tough because I have signed up for competitive leagues where I have been getting my head kicked in every match. I don't like to lose so I want to practice and get better. Where am I going to find the time? I definitely need my two year old son Jake to pick up golf or tennis soon so I can use him as an excuse to practice more.

As for poker, I think my game is improving even though my bankroll has been stagnant. The one thing I continue to struggle with online is the one big mistake I make every session. There always seems to be a hand where I get my whole stack in way behind. It's things like calling off big bets with an over pair when the board is straightening or flushing, making a 4 bet preflop with 66 because I think racing against over cards is a good idea, or making a huge value bet with a big hand only to figure out later, that the only hand that will call me is one that beats me.

It is now 3 months until the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. I will be spending some time in April figuring out how to satellite into the tournament and make some cash while doing it.

Las Vegas Trip Report

2009-03-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

I went to Las Vegas for the opening round of the NCAA Basketball tournament on Thursday and Friday. I expected to play a fair amount of poker against young fraternity guys all pumped up because their team won, or drunk and angry because they lost.

My friend Chris, along with Bill, and Henry were the gang ready to cause trouble. The problem was that I am the only trouble maker in the bunch. For the trip Chris and Henry played exactly zero hands of black jack. The only bets Chris made were with Bill for $10 each on the the tournament games. Bill played black jack with me for about 1.5 hours and went to bed at 10:30 on Thursday night. Henry had only been to Las Vegas 2 times and does not gamble.

Friday afternoon while watching my Arizona Wildcats run over Utah, Bill decided that he would rather leave early and try to sleep in his own bed on Friday instead of spending the night in Vegas and leaving very early the next morning. What sane man with a wife and 3 kids at home is in a hurry to leave Vegas? Especially when he is winning?! Bill had just won big bets on ASU and U of A.

I guess the city of Las Vegas was counting on me to help their economy. The trip started on a sour note as I had to pay Bill $500 from the lost golf bet. My goal was to try and win it all back by the end of the trip.

We arrived at the Paris hotel at 8:30 AM and took in the buffet. It was a decent selection highlighted by the Crepe making station. After that we decided to play black jack until Chris arrived. Once again, the black jack tables were not kind to me and I lost $130 playing on a shared bankroll with Billy.

Needless to say, I grew weary of the blackjack table and was jonesing to play poker. I left my friends for a few hours to walk over to the Caesar's Palace poker room. I jumped into a $1-$3 No Limit game and was soon making money again.

On the button I picked up Ace-Seven offsuit. There were two limpers to me and I raised to $12. I got one caller in the Big Blind as the limpers folded. The flop was 7-9-J.

The blind lead into me for $20 and I made the loose call. The turn was an Ace. He checked and I bet $40. He calls. The river is another beautiful Ace. He checks again, and this time I bet $100. Somehow he calls again and I win a nice pot. He did not show but I'm guessing he must have had a Jack with a King or a Queen.

Some time later I limp along with a few others with 22 in late position. The flop is 5-5-7. An early position limper leads out for $10 and everyone folds to me. I don't know if I believe he has anything so I call thinking maybe I can take it away on the turn. Unfortunately another player calls behind me in position so now I am probably done with the hand.

However the turn card is another 2 giving me 2's full of 5's. Now the early player leads again for $35. I decide to try and bring along the player behind me so I just call. Once again, the player behind me does not do what I want because he folds.

The river is a King. He bets again, this time $65. I had initially put him on a 7 with maybe an Ace kicker, but now I am believing that he has a 5. The question is should I raise him? I don't have the nuts and there are a few hands that beat me. However there are a lot more worse hands that will call. I pushed all in for $165. He stared me down for a while and eventually called. He made a comment about "nice catch" so I think that confirms that he had the 5 but he did not show his hand either.

I left Caesar's Palace up $300 for the session. I met up with the rest of the guys and hung out in the room watching the day's games. We decided to have a steak dinner at "The Strip" in Planet Hollywood Hotel. I had not been in the hotel since it opened and I was pleasantly surprised. It had a hip and exciting vibe and was definitely more busy than Paris. The restaurant was great although I could have done without the $7 split plate fee per diner. The 23 layer chocolate cake was fantastic and 3 of us could not even finish the one slice they gave us.

After the big dinner my non-gambling friends did not want to party. Bill wanted to go to bed and Chris and Henry wanted to walk around on the strip. I decided to stay and play poker at Planet Hollywood. Their poker room is a bit of a disaster as it is right in the middle of the gaming floor and is only separated by velvet ropes. It's very hard to hear and it's not all that comfortable.

I sat down at a $1-2 No Limit table and right away I began to get annoyed with the player in the one seat. He was in every pot and he would take a really long time to make his decisions. Some of them were a little ridiculous as it was obvious that you either call if you have it or fold if you don't. Finally on a board of 7-8-9 one player bet, the one seat min raised, and the original bettor went all in for $100 more. We waited about 2 minutes while he hemmed and hawed. I had had enough and told the dealer to put him on the clock. The dealer complied and the player looked at me with daggers and said, "Do you have someplace you have to go? Are the blinds going up?"

I calmly told him that I felt he was taking too long and I would like to play a hand. He eventually made the call only to find himself crushed. He had 5-6 for the 9 high straight, but his opponent had Jack-Ten for the Jack high straight. Apparently that busted him because he got up from the table. He hung around for another hour talking to his friend at the table but he never bought back in. It's a shame too, because I really wanted to see how he would try to attack me at the table.

I had bought in for $200 and had lost $50 in various small pots over the first 40 minutes. Then I picked up pocket Kings in late position. There was an early raise to $10. It folded to me and I made it $30. The intial raiser made it $100 and for a brief second I considered that he may have Aces. But I really wanted to get it all in, so that's what I did. He called with the Aces and unlike AIG, I was not bailed out by catching a King.

That session at Planet Hollywood was a loser and I think I left around $250 at the table.

The next day I had a $300 up swing again at Bally's before the U of A game. I also bet $100 on the University of Arizona in their game against Utah. They won easily and I was rolling.

My last session was at the Venetian. There was one big hand of note and I'm not sure if I played it correctly. It was my third hand at the table and I was in the small blind. Five players limped in for $2 and I completed in the small blind with 5-2 offsuit.

The flop was 5-3-2 with a flush draw. I lead out for $10 and they all fold except for a late position player who raises me to $30. I thought that maybe he had a small over pair or maybe a flush draw, so I moved all in for $165 more.

So what hands could my opponent have that would call my bet and be behind? Maybe tens or Jacks? Maybe a suited Ace with a pair on the board?

Looking back, I think the proper play may have been to call the raise and see what happens on the turn. If I still think he is on a draw and it doesn't come on the turn, I greatly improve my chances of winning the pot and I can bet less and still have my opponent making an easier incorrect call.

The problem with moving all in is that most of the hands that will call me are the ones that beat me? That is what happened here as he turned over the A-4 for the wheel. I did not hit any of my four outs to the full house and I was broke in 3 hands.

I bought in for another $200 and played the next 4 hours into the night. I left with exactly $200. I was never up or down more than $50 for the rest of the night.

So overall I broke even for the trip in gambling if I don't include paying Bill for the golf.

It also made me smile that when I got home, I had an offer from the Harrah's company to book my room for the World Series of Poker at some really cheap rates for the summer. Stay tuned.

Golf Bet Debacle

2009-03-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Bill won the "Who Is A Better Golfer" bet for 2009 today. I am sooooo frustrated with my golf game right now.

We played at Paradise Valley Country Club today because Phoenix Country Club had a tournament in the afternoon. I like the course at PV. It has some nice elevation changes and beautiful scenery since it is tucked up against Mummy Mountain and Camelback Mountain.

Bill did not play very well today, but it didn't matter because I played worse. I had at least 3 three-putts and three balls out of bounds, including two of them on the same hole.

The frustrating part (besides losing the $500 bet and having to swallow my pride) is since I have been taking lessons from Byron at the club, I really feel like my swing is improving. I hit at least a dozen really good shots today. I hit some great drives, a couple of impressive 5 woods from the fairway, and the highlight was a 3 wood from 235 yards that ended up 10 feet from the pin.

Part of me wants to go and practice harder since I feel I am close to posting some good rounds. The other part of me wants to throw my clubs in the closet and just concentrate on Tennis and Poker for a while. The club championships in Tennis are coming up in the next couple of weeks and I think I might do well if I practice a little.

PLO Heater

2009-03-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

I am probably jinxing myself, but I am in the middle of playing on 2 tables of .5-1 Pot Limit Omaha on Full Tilt and I think I may have found 2 of the worst players ever at my table.

ginolwd (name shortened to protect my claim on the gold mine) has stats of 100 vpip, 74 pre flop raise after 70 hands. Ii7 (name shortened) has stats of 77 vpip, 4.3 preflop raise after 70 hands.

As I speak, I am up $153. ginolwd has $210 in his stack down from over $400 and somehow Ii7 has over $650. I think I will be playing until they leave the table.

OK I have left both tables as the fish have gone away. I finished up $183. I never managed to get my whole stack in against the fish, but I won enough pots to make it a good night.

I will try and post some hands later this weekend.

I thought this was a good example of getting inside my opponent's head:

Full Tilt Poker Game #11128678431: Table Elbert (deep 6) - $0.50/$1 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 1:18:06 ET - 2009/03/14
Seat 1: ginolwd168 ($280.20)
Seat 2: Poker_Bully1 ($337.65)
Seat 3: pokerdun ($161.15)
Seat 4: GoldFishCracker ($100)
Seat 5: pop1time ($196.50)
Seat 6: Ii7Ii7I ($629.65)
pop1time posts the small blind of $0.50
Ii7Ii7I posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Poker_Bully1 [Kd Ks 5h Ts]
ginolwd168 raises to $3.50
Poker_Bully1 raises to $12

I think it's standard to reraise a donkey here, especially to isolate
pokerdun calls $12
I am not thrilled he called since he seems to be an ok player.

GoldFishCracker folds
pop1time folds
Ii7Ii7I folds
ginolwd168 calls $8.50
*** FLOP *** [6s 6c 4h]
ginolwd168 bets $18.75
Even though he was playing 90% of his hands, a majority of the time he would bet big when he had the goods and small when he had nothing. This was a 1/2 bet pot, so I assumed I was still ahead, but I still had Pokerdun behind me and I did not want to get trapped by AAXX.
Poker_Bully1 has 15 seconds left to act
Poker_Bully1 calls $18.75
pokerdun folds
*** TURN *** [6s 6c 4h] [Ac]
ginolwd168 checks
Poker_Bully1 has 15 seconds left to act
Pokerdun had folded on the flop so now I was pretty confident. Bad players assume that every time someone raises they have AA or KK in their hand. His check tells me he is weak. I am pretty confident that even if ginolwd168 has a single Ace, he would have to fold it because I may have a full house and he would be drawing dead.

Poker_Bully1 bets $36
ginolwd168 has 15 seconds left to act
ginolwd168 folds
Uncalled bet of $36 returned to Poker_Bully1
Poker_Bully1 mucks
Poker_Bully1 wins the pot ($72)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $75 Rake $3
Board: [6s 6c 4h Ac]
Seat 1: ginolwd168 folded on the Turn
Seat 2: Poker_Bully1 collected ($72), mucked
Seat 3: pokerdun folded on the Flop
Seat 4: GoldFishCracker (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: pop1time (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Ii7Ii7I (big blind) folded before the Flop

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB is ginowld again

BB ($384.40)

Hero (UTG) ($221.95)

MP ($160.40)

Button ($238.45)

SB ($630.40)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, K, A, 7

Hero calls $1, MP calls $1, 2 folds, BB bets $4.50, Hero calls $3.50, 1 fold

ginowld had been raising 75% of his hands so even though my hand is mediocre, I figure it's ahead of his range and there are a few ways I can hit the nuts so it's worth a call.

Flop: ($10.50) 3, 6, 4 (2 players)

BB bets $1, Hero raises to $9, BB calls $8

Usually these small bets meant he had nothing. I was surprised at the call, but I still had outs.

Turn: ($28.50) 10 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero checks
I will gladly take the free card

River: ($28.50) 4 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $24, BB calls $24

I don't have the nuts, but I'm sure he doesn't have a full house because you should always bet a coordinated board like that to charge the flush draw. He let me see the river for free. Since he's a calling station, a bet is in order. The question was how much would he call with an over pair.

Total pot: $76.50 Rake: $3

ginowld had Qh Kc 9h Qc for Queens and 4's.

Home Poker Tournament and Golf Bet

2009-03-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

I was invited to a home poker tournament held by one of my clients in Scottsdale. He managed to get two tables full of friends and friends of friends.

The details of the night are a little fuzzy for me because I had just got back from a 5 day vacation in Cabo San Lucas and I was a bit frazzled after traveling with my wife and 2 year old.

My client, Bill was nice enough to just deal and not actually play. I have a feeling after watching the play of the others at the table that he will want to play next time. Most of the players at my table were not very experienced. In fact one time, a player in a hand with me made the nuts on the river. I bet into him ( I obviously did not know he had the nut flush) hoping to get value from my two pair and he just called! I did not want to embarrass him by asking him about it in front of the others, but I was really curious to know what he was thinking.

These types of tables are really a weakness in my game. The type of player that is loose passive and never raises is my krytponite. The problem is that I never know where I am at in the hand. Especially if there are two or three others in the hand. I'm sure the solution is to play tight in early and middle position and play nearly any two cards on the button if it is not raised. Then just sit back and wait to make a strong hand and value bet the hell out of it.

Unfortunately for me, I did not make the adjustment fast enough and never accumulated a decent amount of chips. I went out in 11th place when I turned two pair but ran into a player who had slow played a higher two pair that he had hit on the flop.

It will be interesting to see if Bill manages to put together this game on a regular basis.

As for golf, the carnage continues. I played twice in Cabo San Lucas at a beautiful course on the Ocean called Cabo Real. I shot 87 and 88. I saw some further progress in my swing changes, but the course was hard and it was new to me, which is a bad combination if you are hoping to score well.

I felt confident coming into my match with Bill today even though I was down 3.5 to 2.5. My goal was to fully commit to each shot. That is sometimes hard to do when making a swing change.

The bad news for me was that I started out horribly. I bogeyed the first hole when I airmailed my approach shot and then hit my pitch shot over the green and into the bunker. On the second hole, I hit the lake while Billy birdied it. Right off the bat I was down 3 strokes.

I played better the rest of the round, but lots of little things were not going my way. I missed a couple of easy putts under 5 feet, I hit the big tree in the fairway on 14 and it richocheted all the way across the fairway and behind another tree. In the mean time, on the few occasions that Bill hit some shots off line, he managed to find good lies or clear lines to the green.

The match was basically over by 15th hole. Bill had a six stroke lead and was playing very well. He hit a great sand shot off of a downhill lie on 16 and saved par. He had a small hiccup on 17 when he found the lake with his second shot, but he came back strong and birdied 18 to shoot 77. I shot a back nine of 39 to shoot 82 and he was never threatened.

So now I have to win three in a row to save the $500 bet. I feel like I am improving every time out, but it just has not been fast enough. Luckily there will be a 3 or 4 week break in our series as Bill has some busy weekends coming up. Hopefully this will give me a chance to improve my putting and gain more confidence in my new swing. I just want to make sure that Bill has to play as well as he did today to take my money before it's all over.

Update

2009-02-21T21:55:00.000-08:00

I lost to Bill again in golf and I am down 3.5 to 2.5. I actually played better this round, but I had two major disaster holes on 3 and 14. I had two shots out of bounds on each and that was the difference.

The good news is that I hit some real quality shots and I think my lessons are starting to sink in.

I am playing on Full Tilt as I write this and losing at 1-2 NL. I have had the weirdest streak lately where I can't seem to win a big pot. It's not that I am taking bad beats, it's that every time I have a hand I want to get my whole stack in with, nobody ever has anything.

Right now some player named jryanm7 is giving me fits by talking a lot of smack and sitting on my left. He has played almost 1/2 of his hands preflop and has tripled his $200 starting stack. I think he might be leaving now, so I should probably go to bed. Oops wait he's back.

Tomorrow I leave for Mexico so there will be no poker until I get back.

Golf and Poker Update

2009-02-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

The big golf match between Bill and I is now tied at 2.5 to 2.5. We played in the rain on Sunday which was not fun at all. Long story short, I was up 3 strokes, then down 3 strokes with 3 holes to play when I came back and tied it on the last hole.

As for Poker, I seem to be in a bit of a rut. I only made about $100 since January 1, so I am behind schedule for the $1,000 goal by the end of February. Running even is boring as hell. Now when Phil Ivey breaks even, he has some excitement. All the rail birds have been a twitter with the news that Phil bet $800,000 on the Cardinals + 3.5 in the first half of the Super Bowl. He also bet $800,000 on the Cardinals + 7 for the game, so he made his money back less the juice. If the Cards don't botch that last play of the half he makes 1.6 Million!!! Another prime example of why I stopped betting on sports.

Silver Star...cold decking and getting decked

2009-01-26T19:59:00.000-08:00

I qualified for Silver Star status on Poker Stars this month which seems to get me a whole lot of nothing. I had to miss the big Turbo Takedown on Sunday while playing golf. That seems like a decent deal for 5000 FPP's I can enter a tournament with a $1 Million prize pool and almost half the field get's paid something. Unfortunately that would be almost all of my points, but maybe it will get easier now that I have the 1.5 multiplier working for me.

They also seem to have weekly and monthly tourneys for my VIP status, but the problem is that playing a tournament with 5,000-10,000 other players could take all day. I really don't have that kind of time. I think I'll give it another month and then make a more informed decision.

I have been treading water lately. I had been doing well short stacking 1-2 NL on Stars, but losing it back in the 180 man turbos.

Last night I went back to my deep stack .50-1 NL tables. It was a swingy night due to two hands.

Here was my excellent start about 5 hands into the night:

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: larryvq ($100)
Seat 2: Perdix80 ($108.75)
Seat 3: Malsuerte ($103) -
Seat 4: Hamad_dk ($136.25) -
Seat 5: nazkev01 ($521.75) -
Seat 6: DuckDuckFish ($98.50)

PRE-FLOP:

Hamad_dk posts small blind $0.50
nazkev01 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: larryvq

RAISE DuckDuckFish ($4)
CALL larryvq ($4)
FOLD Perdix80
FOLD Malsuerte
CALL Hamad_dk ($3.50)
FOLD nazkev01

FLOP:

Pot: $13

CHECK Hamad_dk
BET DuckDuckFish ($9)
RAISE larryvq ($18)
CALL Hamad_dk ($18)
RAISE DuckDuckFish ($94.50)
CALL larryvq ($76.50)
RAISE Hamad_dk ($132.25)
CALL larryvq ($1.50)

TURN:

Pot: $362.75

RIVER:

Pot: $362.75

SHOWDOWN:
Hamad_dk:

larryvq:

MUCK DuckDuckFish

larryvq collected $3 from side pot 1larryvq collected $293.5 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $299Main pot: $293
Side pot: $3
Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: larryvq showed [7d 7s] and won 296.50 with a full house, Sevens full of Sixes - Net Gain/Loss: ($274.5)
Seat 2: Perdix80 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: Malsuerte button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Hamad_dk small blind showed [Jc Qc] and lost with two pair, Sixes and Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-20)

Seat 5: nazkev01 big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-1)
Seat 6: DuckDuckFish mucked [9c 9s] - Net Gain/Loss: ($-98)

Then towards the end of my session, all my profits went away in one hand:

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: larryvq ($230.85) - ( 200.00% / 100.00% / 2.00/ 1)
Seat 2: mygirlkristy ($27.90) ( 0.00% / 0.00% / 0.00/ 1)
Seat 3: bballjm ($219) (34% / 30% / 2.8/ 50)
Seat 4: edsall78 ($44.20) ( 0.00% / 0.00% / 0.00/ 1)
Seat 5: Garrin4e ($185.50) - ( 0.00% / 0.00% / 0.00/ 1)
Seat 6: FRUIT_BAGEL ($99) - ( 0.00% / 0.00% / 0.00/ 1)

PRE-FLOP:

FRUIT_BAGEL posts small blind $0.50
larryvq posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: larryvq

FOLD mygirlkristy
RAISE bballjm ($4)
FOLD edsall78
FOLD Garrin4e
FOLD FRUIT_BAGEL
RAISE larryvq ($14)
RAISE bballjm ($38)
CALL larryvq ($24)

FLOP:

Pot: $81.5

CHECK larryvq
BET bballjm ($45)
RAISE larryvq ($192.85)
CALL bballjm ($136)

TURN:

Pot: $455.35

RIVER:

Pot: $455.35

SHOWDOWN:
larryvq:

bballjm:

bballjm collected $435.5 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $438 Rake: $3

Final Board:

Seat 1: larryvq big blind showed [Kd Kc] and lost with a pair of Kings - Net Gain/Loss: ($-174)
Seat 2: mygirlkristy folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: bballjm showed [Ad Ac] and won 435.50 with a pair of Aces - Net Gain/Loss: ($226.5)

Seat 4: edsall78 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: Garrin4e button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: FRUIT_BAGEL small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)

I don't really see how I could have got away from this one. If the guy had been playing a little tighter I may not have gone for the check raise on the flop, but I was miles ahead of most of this guy's range of hands. Of course it could be argued that the only hand that calls my check raise is one I lose to. However if I just lead out, I don't give him a chance to bluff on the flop. That is why this game is so interesting. There is an opportunity on every hand for endless second guessing and 20/20 hindsight.

My First Win in a 180 player SNG

2009-01-14T07:31:00.001-08:00

I won a 180 person $12 Turbo Sit N Go on Poker Stars last night for the first time ever. As I explained in my previous post, I really think Arnold Snyder’s Poker Tournament Formula book has hit the nail right on the head when it comes to tournaments like these with short chips and fast blind levels. I have posted the hands that I played below.

1. Jc7s in cutoff. First hand of tournament with $1,500 in chips and 5 minute blind levels. I open raise to 60 and SB calls. Flop is 4s-5h-7c. SB leads out for 140. I am surprised by this. Maybe I should raise, but I just call to see what happens on the turn. Turn is 8s. SB bets 500. I put him on an over pair like 9’s or 10’s so I fold. He wins pot and shows AQ for a 2 barrel bluff.

2. 25-50 blinds I start with 1,240 in chips. I have 6d 6s in the hi-jack. One limper and I raise to $200. Everyone folds and the limper calls. Flop is Ts 3s 8s. Opponent shoves all in for 1145. I fold and he shows 4s 4h. Two hands played and bluffed out twice.

3. 50-100 blinds and I have 1,040 in chips. Qc Tc in early position. I open shove and win the blinds.

4. 75-150 blinds and I have 1,040 in chips. Qh 5s in UTG plus 1. The blinds are coming and I am short so I open shove. I get called in two places. This may be a short tournament. I am up against Ad 9c and Jh 8h. What was J8 thinking? Board runs out Ts Qd 3d Tc 7s and just like that I am up to 3,120 in chips.

5. Blinds are 100-200 and I have 2,970 in chips. Snyder’s book says I am desperate and need to shove any two. I have As 7c UTG so that’s what I do. Everyone folds.

6. Blinds are 150-300 with 25 ante. I have 2720 in chips and have Ah Td UTG plus 1. I open shove all in and win the blinds and antes.

7. Blinds are 150-300 with 25 ante. I am in the SB with 3020 in chips and 2d 2c. The cutoff raises all in to 1830 and I call. He shows Qh 5s. The board is Ks Tc Kd 6s Qs. I get rivered on my coin flip and am down to 1,165 in chips.

8. Blinds are 200-400 with 50 ante. I am UTG with 770 in chips and I push with 4d 2s. A player behind raises all in to isolate. He shows Qc As. Hey I am live! Board is 8d 5d 4c 5c 9c and I suck out.

9. Very next hand in the BB I pick up Ac Qd and I have 2440 in chips before the blinds and ante. UTG raises all in for 4,145 and I call. He shows Ad 8h. The board is 5h Kh Js 2h 7s and my AQ holds up. I went from less than 2 BB to 5,380 chips in two hands.

10. Blinds 300-600 with 50 ante. I have 5,130 in chips. I am dealt 7h 7c on the button. The cutoff raises to 1800 and push all in. The raiser calls and shows Ac 7s. I dodge his Ace outs and double up again. Now I am up to 11,410.

11. Blinds 300-600 with 50 ante. I am in the big blind with 4s 3h. It’s folded to the SB who limps in and has 4437 left in chips. I raise to 1800 and he folds.

12. Blinds are 400-800 with 75 ante. I have 11,610 in chips. I am in the cutoff with Ad 2s. UTG +1 with 7,480 in chips limps for 800. It’s folded to me and I raise to 3,200. The limper calls. I think the correct play is to push all in here, but the limp seems suspicious to me. I was planning on folding if he raised all in even though I would be getting good odds to call. The board is Qc Kd 5h. My opponent moves all in for his last 4,205 and I fold.

13. Blinds are still 400-800 with 75 ante. I have 8,035 in chips. I have Ac 7h UTG and open shove. A player with 4,612 in chips calls all in and turns over 9s Th. Huh? The board is 5h Qd 3h As 3s and my hand is good.

14. Blinds 400-800 with 75 ante. I have $14,447 in chips and Ah7h in the small blind. I open raise all in and the BB calls all in for 6,860 with 9s Qd. The board is 8c 2s 4d 7s Kc. The best hand holds up again and now I have 22,632 in chips.

15. Blinds 500-1000 with 100 ante. I am big stack at the table. I raise with 2s 5s to steal the blinds. It works and I pick up 3,200 in chips.

16. Two hands later I pick up pocket 8’s. I open raise and win the blinds again.

17. Blinds 600-1200 and 125 ante. I have 25,332 in chips and KsQs in the small blind. It’s folded to me and I raise enough to cover the BB. He folds and I pick up 3,275 in chips.

18. Blinds 600-1200 and 125 ante. I have Ad Th and raise at UTG+1 to 3,600. I win the blinds again.

19. Blinds 800-1600 and 125 ante. I get a walk in the BB.

20. Blinds 800-1600 and 125 ante. I have 31,032 in chips and pick up pocket 9’s in the small blind. A short stack with 2713 in chips moves all in. I call hoping the BB will play nice and just call so we can eliminate a player. He does. The board runs out 8h 7h 8s 5s 8c as we check it down. The short stack wins the pot with Qc Js and stays alive.

21. The next hand I have 7d6h on the button. It’s folded to me and I raise to 6000 and win the blinds.

22. Still 800-1600 with 125 ante. I pick up 8c 8h in middle position. I open raise to 4,800. A player behind me moves all in for 6,479 and I make the call. He shows Ts Td. I do not suck out for once and lose a decent sized pot.

23. The blinds are 1500-3000 with 300 ante. I have folded for a round of blinds so my image may be a little tighter now. I have Ad 7h. The table is 6 handed and I am UTG +1. I have 20,140 in chips and I open shove all in. A player with only 7,911 in chips makes the call. He shows As Ts. The board is 3c 3h 8h 6h Qh. I catch the runner-runner flush to suck out. Yea me! I am up to 34,051 in chips and tied for the chip lead at my table.

24. I get a walk in the BB and collect 4,500 in chips. Nice!

25. Blinds are still 1500-3000 with 300 ante. I have As 7h in the small blind. The table is now 5 handed. The button open shoves for 8,780 and I call. He shows Ah 9d and I am dominated again. The board is Tc 7c Ad 9h 6h. After a brief smile when I flopped two pair, it turns to a frown when he hits a better two pair on the turn. I am down to 27,371 in chips.

26. I push all in with As8s and win the blinds and antes for a 9,000 pot.

27. I have 32,771 in chips with 2000-4000 antes and 400 ante. I push all in for the second consecutive hand with KcQd. Nobody calls and I win $12,000. We have been at the final table bubble since it got down to 5 handed.

28. 2000-4000 with 400 ante. I have 35,971 in chips and Kc 9c in the small blind. It’s folded to me and I raise all in. The BB with 11,568 left in chips calls with Ah 6c. The board is 8s 3h 5d 7s 6h. I suck out and hit a straight on the river to get us to the final table.

29. Here is the final table seating chart:

a. Seat 1 Tilt u_15 (36660 in chips)

b. Seat 2 larryvq (53139 in chips)

c. Seat 3 stupidnub (13974 in chips)

d. Seat 4 tkavv (13736 in chips)

e. Seat 5 Toughloose (22260 in chips)

f. Seat 6 Ni_Liv (42753 in chips)

g. Seat 7 Timesmog (38520 in chips)

h. Seat 8 demo0013 (23,962 in chips)

i. Seat 9 rutasasha (24996 in chips)

30. There are a couple of short stacks that I would not mind seeing go bust before I get too active. On the other hand, even though I am the chip leader, I only have 13x the Big Blind so I can’t wait too long.

31. I fold a few hands including KdQd on the BB to an all in shove from Timesmog for 39k.

32. I have been blinded down to 40,139 in chips when I finally pick up a good hand. I have Kd Ks UTG. I limp for the first time in the tournament hoping to reraise. I figure that half of the table has not seen me play so it may work. Nobody bites and the BB checks. The flop is 5c Jd 4d and the BB shoves all in for 18,160. I call and he shows 8s 7h. The board runs out 5c Jd 4d 5h 4c and my hand holds up.

33. Other players bust quickly and we are down to 5 players. I have 65,199 in chips and blinds are 3000-6000 with 600 ante. I open raise Kd Qc and win the blinds for a 18,000 pot.

34. Still 5 players and I have Kh 8d on the button. The short stack pushes all in for 10,656. I call hoping for others to join in. The BB comes along as well. The board runs out 4d 7c Td 2h 3c. The short stack survives with his Qh Th and now he is up to 37,968.

35. I open shove As 3h and win the blinds and antes

36. Down to 4 players and I have 60,543 in chips. Blinds are up to 3,500-7000 with 700 ante. I get a walk in the BB.

37. Next hand I push all in with Qs Jh in the SB and win the blinds and antes.

38. 3500-7000 with 700 ante. I have 74,543 in chips. I am in second place, but the 4^th place player only has 17,368 in chips and he’s on the BB. I have Ah 2d and I raise to 21,000 figuring I will try and take out the shorty. Instead the big stack stupidnub with 110389 reraises all in. The BB folds and I have to fold. I think the better play would have been to limp and wait for the BB to push all in.

39. The shorty busts a couple of hands later and we are three handed.

a. Larryvq (45143 in chips)

b. Stupidnub (143289 in chips)

c. Timesmog (81568 in chips)

40. On the button with 3500-7000 blinds and 700 ante I have Ah3s. I push all in. Timesmog calls and shows As 3c. We chop up the BB.

41. Still 3 handed on the button again. I push all in with Js 8d for 47,243. Stupidnub reraises all in and I figure I am screwed now. He turns over Ks Jc. The board is 2s 9s Qh 8c 8h. SHIP IT!!!

42. Here are the chip counts:

a. Larryvq (103586 in chips)

b. Stupidnub (82746 in chips)

c. Timesmog (83668 in chips)

d. Blinds are 3500-7000 with 700 ante.

43. Qs Jh on the button. I move all in and win the 19,600 in blinds and ante’s

44. I have the BB and 103,586 in chips. I am the chip leader by a small amount. Stupidnub folds and Timesmog shoves all in from the SB for 70,368. I have Kh Jh and figure that’s ahead of his range of nearly any two cards so I call. He shows Ts 6c. The board runs out Qc Kd 7s 4s 6s. Boo yah! We are heads up and I have the chip lead.

45. The heads up battle lasted for 19 hands. I had him all in for his life with my AQs versus his Th Kd but he flopped a King. So then he had me by about 2-1 in chips. I kept the pots small and kept winning with small bets on the flop. I eventually made it all the way back to the chip lead with 174708 in chips to his 95292. The blinds were 5000-10000 with 1000 ante. I decided to start raising every button all in. The first hand I decided to do this with is Js 9s. He calls with Ac 8d. The board is 8s 3d 6s. Crap! The turn is a Jack. Yes! The river is ………………………………Queen and I win the tournament!!!!!! $594 for first place.

So I count 6 suck outs on my way to the title including a couple for my tournament life. I don’t think any of them were worse than 2-1 dogs before the flop so that’s not bad. I was also sucked out on a few times as well. The key was that once I got healthy I was aggressive and kept building up my chips so that when I did lose a hand or two, I was not eliminated and still had enough chips to keep players afraid of me.

The final stats were 158 hands. I had a VPIP of 31% and a PFR of 22%. My aggression factor was 2.44.

I think I could kiss Arnold Snyder right about now. That was easily the best $15 I have ever spent on a poker book.

Larry and Billy Golf Bet Match #3

2009-01-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

We played our third match last Sunday. I was up 2-0 coming and feeling very confident.

Once again I jumped out to an early lead by playing the first two holes in 1 under par. By the time we were through the first 7 holes I was up by 4 strokes. It could have been more. On the 3rd hole, Bill hit his tee shot out of bounds and was staring triple bogey in the face. My second shot was pulled left and hit a palm tree up near the fronds. We were looking all around the tree for the ball and could not find it. Finally I looked up in the tree and there it was, lodged in the palm fronds 35 feet above me. The good news was that I could take an unplayable lie and only take one stroke for a penalty. The bad luck came from the fact that this was the first time I have ever hit a tree and not had the ball fall out.

I was cruising along just fine until the 8th hole. It was here that I started to miss my short putts. I bogeyed 8 and double bogeyed 9 to shoot a 41 on the front 9. My lead was gone and so was my confidence.

I continued to play poorly including missing a couple more short putts. The coup de grace was having the cart girl fire up the engine on her gas cart right in the middle of backswing when I was trying to pitch out of trouble on 17. I proceeded to pull the shot left and it landed right behind another tree and I had no shot at hitting the green.

The final score was Bill 83 and I had an 87.

I am going to take a series of lessons from Byron, our teaching pro at the club starting on January 19th. Hopefully he can straighten out my game quickly.

A Strategy Eye Opener for Low Limit Tournaments

2009-01-13T12:40:00.001-08:00

I picked up the Poker Tournament Formula I and II by Arnold Snyder on Amazon the other day. I have pretty much finished volume 1 which caters to small buy in fast tournaments. This book really drives home how important position is in poker tournaments.

The main theme of the book is that you need to play fast and aggressive poker to stay ahead of the rising blind levels in these tournaments. He makes a great point in saying instead of relying on luck to bring you good cards to double up, why not bet on the fact that your opponents will not have good cards?

The chapter on position was the real eye opener for me. His strategy in late position is extremely aggressive, but I really think it would work well in the tight passive games I’ve seen at Casino Arizona.

All of these plays assume you have at least 30 blinds in your stack.

Here is a brief summary:

If it’s folded to you in the button, cutoff, or hi-jack raise with any 2 cards. If you get a caller, fire ½ the pot or more on any flop. If you are called again, be looking to bet the turn as well unless it looks like suicide.

If the pot is unraised, but there are one or two limpers, go ahead and raise any two. Same strategy on the flop and turn applies.

If someone raises in front of you and he is the only one in the pot, call with any two on the button. Your opponent will usually bet on the flop. If he doesn’t, try to take the hand away with a bet. Otherwise call the continuation bet. If he checks the turn, make a big bet to take it away. If he bets the turn, look to raise all in.

This may seem crazy aggressive, but when you stop and think about it, these situations do not come up very often. It is not folded to you very often in late position, so I think you can get away with most of these steals. Calling a raise of one player does not happen very often as well, only because a lot of times the raise gets multiple callers. I think I have probably raised without looking at my cards 15 times in late position, over all the tournaments I’ve played and I think my success rate is nearly 100%.

The position plays where you call a pre-flop raise to take the pot away on the flop or turn can also be very strong. Snyder’s book made me think of all the times I have raised up AK, AQ, QQ, JJ, or TT in early or middle position only to see me miss the flop or have an over card hit. I usually make the continuation bet on the flop and I absolutely hate it when I get called. I rarely will fire two bullets on these bluffs. Even when I have an over pair and I like the flop, I usually bet the flop then check the turn for pot control. If my opponent, who has position on me, fires a big bet on the turn or raises my turn bet, I’m probably throwing away everything but the nuts.

The key is to pick your spots carefully. You need to have a good idea of where your opponent stands in chips and plan your bets accordingly. If your plan is to call the raise and a flop bet, but then realize that your opponent has now put half his stack in the middle, he may feel pot committed and make the call. We definitely want the opponent to feel comfortable in folding. Plus this play can pick up a lot of chips. For example let’s say a middle position player opens for 3x the BB and I call on the button. My opponent fires on the flop and I call. Now he checks the turn and bet and win the pot. That’s 7-9 BB that I pick up on that play. Even more, if I make the risky play where I raise a turn bet from my opponent. I would have to steal the blinds 5 times to make the same amount as this one play.

Now I know that the tight conservative player would argue, “What happens if you run into an opponent with a real hand? You just lost 7-12 BB running a bluff!” I have found that there are some days when every move you make seems to work out and there are other days where every time you make a move, someone raises you. The objective is to accumulate chips and it just seems much more difficult to do waiting for good cards and hoping you get paid off.

The one part of his strategy that I do not agree with is that if you are under 20 blinds that you should push all in if you are the first player to enter the pot. I believe the hands he mentions are QQ – 77, AKs, AQs, AJs, AKo, AQo, KQs, and QJs. If you are under 10 blinds then the range is even wider. I think the 20 BB shove is not the most optimal way to play. If the table is playing tight, and you get called, your hand will probably be crushed. Now it’s great if you get called and win since you may win up to 20 BB. I just think that a standard 3x or even a 5x raise will work the same and allow you to get away from the hand if someone pushes over the top and you don’t like your hand. I may experiment more with this theory in the turbo Sit-N-Gos to see if I’m right.

Snyder likes to break down his strategy into a Rock – Paper – Scissors theme. He says Position beats Cards, Stacks beat Position, and Cards beat Stacks. You have three weapons at your disposal. Cards are only one of them. He estimates that in his tournament wins he has won 40% of his chips from cards, 40% from position, and the other 20% from using his stack. My results are probably more like 70% cards, 15% position, and 15% stack. Snyder likes to say he would almost rather play a tournament without getting good cards because those are the ones you tend to bust out with.

I did fire up a 90 player turbo Sit-N-Go and a 180 player turbo Sit-N-Go on Poker Stars after getting half way through the book. I incorporated some of his moves and did very well. I finished in the top 20 in the 90 player tournament and I finished 5^th in the 180 player tournament. I managed to build up a big stack in both of the tournaments. I ran into a maniac in the 180 player tournament at the final table that was calling all in bets with nearly any two cards and getting lucky. He picked me off in the end, even though my hand was a slight favorite before the flop.

Bill and Larry Golf Bet Round 2

2009-01-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

I am up 1-0 in out best of 10 rounds bet. Today was round number 2. I made the classic mistake of taking a lesson yesterday and trying to change a couple of things in my swing. As Tin Cup said, "my swing feels like an unfolded lawnchair!"

We started today on the 10th hole. I picked up a stroke as Bill double bogeyed the first hole and I scraped out a bogey. Bill got the stroke back on the 12th with a par and another bogey from me. Then he picked up 2 more strokes on 14 when he made birdie to my bogey.

I was not starting off well since I had bogeyed the first 6 holes. I finally made my first par on 16, but I slipped back with a bogey on 17 to fall 3 strokes behind.

Bill let me back into the match on 18. It is a 512 yard par 5 which Bill can reach in 2 if he hits a strong tee shot. With my weak driving, I have never been close to reaching it. I hit a good drive off the tee, but Bill hit a tree with his tee shot, and his second shot was not much better. I laid up with a 5 iron and had 105 yards to the pin. Bill was looking at 230 yards with water on the right front of the green and bunkers on the left. He tried to hit 2 iron left of the green, but he pushed it into the water. I hit my wedge to about 15 feet and missed the birdie putt. I made the 3 foot come backer for another par. Bill took a drop and then hit another bad wedge shot short of the green. He finally chipped on and one putted for a 7.

After making up 2 shots on 18, I was only one shot behind going into our final 9 holes. I proceeded to give Bill a big cushion again as I missed a short putt for par on #1 and then 3 putted #2. Meanwhile Bill made a miraculous par on #1 after getting stuck behind the huge pine trees left of the green and then birdied #2. So it's back to a 4 shot cushion with 7 holes to play.

In a common theme throughout the day, Bill let me right back into the match on #3. We both hit good drives off the tee. We each had 200 yards to the green for our second shot. Somehow Bill hit his 3 iron 30 yards right and out of bounds. After taking the stroke and distance penalty, he hit his next shot into the greenside bunker on the right. I hit my long awaited first solid shot of the day with my 4 iron replacement to the middle of the green. Bill hit a good long bunker shot, but could not convert the putt and had to settle for a 7. I two putted for my par 4 and picked up 3 strokes to close Bill's lead to one.

The 4th hole is a tough 383 yard par 4 with fairway bunkers on the left and right and deep greenside bunkers as well. Plus the front half of the green slopes severely from back to front. Bill and I both hit strong drives that finished up within 1 yard of each other. Bill hit his pitching wedge and it landed on the front right of the green. I hit the same club and once again our balls were within 3 feet of each other. Unfortunately, my ball was farther away from the hole so I had to putt first and show Bill the break on the putt. I hit a good one to gimme range and made par. Bill then stepped up and drained the 25 footer for his 3rd birdie of the day.

I dropped another stroke on #6 to fall 3 strokes behind with 3 to play. Then I made an incredible comeback. Hole number 7 is the longest par 5 on the course at 547 yards. We both hit lousy drives left into the trees. I punched out down the fairway leaving me 230 yards to the green. Bill punched out into the fairway bunkers 125 yards from the green. I took my 3 wood and hit a really solid shot that ended up just short of the green with a front pin. Bill had to carry a pretty high lip in the bunker. While Bill was getting ready to hit his difficult bunker shot, I mentioned that I might just hole my chip for birdie so he better not play it safe wedging it out short of the green. Bill hit a good shot, but he pushed it right and into the back greenside bunker. I hit my 60 degree wedge pitch shot and it looked like it was going right into the cup....but it broke hard to the left at the last second and I had to settle for par. Bill could not get up and down from the bunker and I picked up one stroke.

Two strokes down with two to play. Number 8 is a 169 yard par 3. They had tucked the pin behind the greenside bunker on the left. Since I was behind, I felt compelled to shoot at it. I hit the ball solidly, but put some hook spin on it and missed the green to the left. Bill hit a good shot to about 20 feet from the cup. I was lucky enough to have a clear shot at the pin, but there was a pine tree just to the left of my line that would restrict my follow through. Plus I had short sided myself so I did not have a lot of green to work with. My short pitch shot came off perfectly as it bunced twice in the fringe and then trickled down to the hole where it came up 12 inches short of perfection. I was very happy to escape with a par 3. Bill in trying to break my heart and spirit by making birdie, ran his putt eight feet by the hole. I had to stifle a chuckle as he missed the par putt and let me back into the match for the third time today.

Our final hole was #9. It's a 381 yard par four with fairway bunkers on the left and a huge pine and olive tree on the right. It's important to find the fairway on this hole if you want any chance at birdie or an easy par. I was really proud of myself as I hit one of my best drives of the day right down the middle. Bill continued to choke by firing his drive out to the right. Sometimes you can hit it far enough to the right that you avoid all the trouble and have a clear shot at the green. Bill was not quite that lucky. He had 148 yards to the pin, but he would have to hit about a 10 yard draw to avoid the tree in front of him. He hit a pretty good shot, but he did not account for the fact that when you hit a draw, you tend to hit the ball a little farther than when you hit a straight ball or a fade. His ball bounced off the back of the green into the rough.

I was sitting in the middle of the fairway with 150 yards to go. The pin was on the back edge of the green and to go long would be an impossible up and down. I usually hit my 8 iron 140-145 yards so that seemed like the club. However I had been hitting my irons short all day and I needed to make sure I had a chance a birdie. I decided to hit a choked up 7 iron. I figured that by choking up, it would also help me keep the ball flight straighter. The shot came off perfectly and it looked like it was going to end up in birdie range. It landed pin high, but because of the lower shot trajectory, it did not stop right away and trickled forward and just into the fringe at the back of the green. I was going to have a chance at winning this round.

With a one stroke lead, Bill's main objective should have been to finish with no worse than a bogey. If he bogeys, then that would force me to birdie the hole for the win. That means that at a minimum he needed to hit his pitch shot on the green and two putt. Instead he tried to be a hero and hit the perfect pitch. It came up short and he had to hit another pitch. His second attempt was not that good either as it left him 8 feet for bogey.

I decided to putt from the fringe. It was 20 feet with about 3 feet of break from left to right. I hit the putt with good speed, but misread the break just a little. It was a good putt and I made the two footer for par to put all the pressure on Bill. He still had 8 feet to try and tie the match. It never had a chance as it started out to the right from the beginning. Bill finished with a soul crushing double bogey and handed me the match. The final score was 83 - 84 to give me a 2-0 lead in our best of 10 matches.

Good Article on Tells

2008-12-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

Joe Navarro is an expert on tells. He wrote a great book called "Read'em and Reap" and currently writes for Bluff Magazine. I found this article online and I want to remember to look for these tells of the mouth. I will update you the next time I play live to see if I noticed it.

http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/Tells-of-the-Mouth-Joe-Navarro-1297.htm

Bill and Larry Golf Bet year 3

2008-12-22T19:23:00.000-08:00

The matchup to decide the best golfer between the two of us for 2009 started today. 10 rounds of golf. Each round will be stroke play. Each win counts as one point. The first one to 5.5 points win the bet. Bill had made some noise a couple of weeks ago about not betting any money on it due to the economy. I of course, questioned his man hood and goaded him into agreeing to a $500 wager. He finally accepted.

Due to the crowd of players today we started on hole number 10. In a surprise, Bill's 5 year old son, joined us for the first 7 holes. I knew this might be a distraction for Bill and sure enough, he had a couple of bad holes when he got distracted.

Bill had jumped out to an early lead as I bogeyed the first 4 holes. My first stroke of luck happened on 14. I hit a 3 wood left, that hit a tree and managed to stay in bounds by about 6 inches. I had to lay up to 50 yards in front of the green and made a bogey 5. The good news was that Bill had hit his tee shot out of bounds and missed the green on his approach. He finished with a 7 to my 5 and I suddenly had a 2 shot lead.

Then I got lucky and birdied the next two holes including number 16 where I sank a 35 foot putt. In the mean time Bill continued his downward spiral by bogeying 15 and double bogeying 16. Suddenly I had a 7 stroke lead after 7 holes.

In my usual fashion I proceeded to give back a bunch of strokes. I got an unlucky bounce off the cart path on 17 and make double bogey. Then I managed to hit the ball in the water on 18 and my lead was back down to 3.

The backsliding continued as we made the turn. To make things worse we had been playing behind a very slow group of 5 old men who would not do the courtesy of letting our foursome play through. It was cold and threatening rain plus the group behind us was losing patience and had yelled at us a couple of times to hurry up. I went back to talk to one of them and let them know that it wasn't our fault. They ended up skipping a couple of holes to get in front of the both of us.

By the time we arrived at the third hole, my lead was down to one. I finally found my groove and went on a run and played the last 7 holes in 1 over par. Bill had some chances to put the pressure on me, but he 3 putted on 7 to miss an opportunity to pick up a stroke and he missed the birdie putt on 18 that would have put the pressure on me to make my 3 footer for par.

The final score was Larry 81 and Bill 83. I now lead the best of 10 rounds 1-0 and the momentum continues from 2008 into 2009.

Short Stack Tournament Strategy

2008-12-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

I have been on a bit of a good run at the casino recently. On Friday after work I played in the 5-150 game at Casino Arizona. I sat and folded for 2 hours and was down $100 when lightning struck. In the span of 5 minutes, I flopped the nut straight and doubled up and then I flopped a set of 7's and turned the full house and won another $250.

At the high point I was up $400. I lost some of it back with Queens when a King flopped and ended the day up over $300.

I had to come back on Saturday morning to play in the Bubble Boy Free Roll. This was the tournament for all the players that had finished on the bubble in all the previous tournaments throughout the year. It was a $25 service fee plus you could get 1500 extra chips for an additional $10, 5 of which went to the dealers and a $5 Keno card.

There were 185 players and they were paying the top 40 a minimum of $50.

Once again I started out fast. In the first hour I had quad 6's and got paid, a straight, and a flush. I won nearly every hand I played in this tournament except for 3.

The first one was early and I'm not sure if I played it wrong or not. I raised one limper with KJs in late position. The button called, the BB called and the limper called. The flop was King high with no straight or flush possible. I did not like the preflop call behind me and I was worried about getting sucked in to a big pot. It was checked to me and I checked as well to see what the button would do. He checked behind.

The turn was a 9, which seemed innocent enough. Except the BB led out for the size of the pot. The early player folded. I still had the button behind me left to act, but I was pretty sure he was going to fold since he didn't act on the flop. I still thought I was ahead, but I wanted to protect my chips. I just called and hoped he would not fire again on the river.

The river was meaningless and he put in the rest of his chips. I could still call and have over 20 BB left, which is a big stack in this tournament. I called and he showed me trip 9's. He had hit the two outer on the turn.

So with results oriented thinking, I should have bet the flop and he probably would have folded. I think with 3 other people in the hand, I need to bet to protect my hand and find out where I am. I could probably bet half the pot and figure that out. If it's heads up, I can check it, because I am either way ahead or way behind. He either has a King with a better kicker or something better. Or he is drawing to 2-5 outs to hit his trips or second pair.

Another hand was a raise with KJ where a short stack pushed all in from the BB. I was getting over 2-1 on my call and felt like I had to make it. I lost the race against AQ.

I easily made it into the top 40 and actually made it down to the final two tables. I was fluctuating between 8-12 BB and the blinds were now going to double every 30 minutes. If I had to guess, the average stack was probably 7-9 BB, but I had the two chip leaders on my left with 20-40 BB. My stealing options were going to be a bit limited.

I made a push all in with A2o in early position and the big stack on my left called with JJ and I did not improve. I finished in 15th for $100. When I added that to the $135 I won in the morning playing 3-6 limit hold'em, it made for a very profitable day.

I was a little disappointed in myself that I made the raise with A2. After thinking about for a while, I thought that maybe I should have waited for a better spot.

I am going to discuss two things relating to late tournament strategy. The first is simple push or fold calculations preflop. The second is a proper strategy for stealing blinds when all the other players have 8-12 BB in their stacks.

I posted the hand for help on two plus two and they told me about the statistical formula to calculate the fold percentage for multiple players.

If people are calling with probability x, the formula for the chances that someone out of y number of players calls is:1 - (1-x)^y.

So, for 5 players left to act and they are calling with the top 10% of their hands, someone will call 40.9% of the time.

The second part of strategy is what to do when everyone is playing tight and they have short stacks. You have a few different options:

1. Play tight and wait for good cards to double up. Wait for premium hands, raise enough to put your opponents all in and hope they double you up.

2. Raise 3x the blind and widen your range a little. If they reraise, you are priced in to call so be sure to play cards you don't mind going all in with. Usually they will call the raise and see if they hit the flop. So you may be forced to go all in on the flop if you want to win the pot.

3. Raise 2-2.5x the blind. In this case, if your opponent reraises all in, you may be able to find a fold and save yourself a little money. The draw back is that more players will be enticed to call the smaller bet and you will be forced to play post flop.

The players seem to play so tight that I am starting to think that option 3 may work in the Casino Arizona tournaments.

a) The players are bad enough that some feel a raise of the BB of 3000 to 6000 seems like a big raise and they may fold, when they are getting 2.5 to one to make the call. They are seldom that big of an underdog to anything.

b)It will let you get away a little cheaper if someone plays back at you for 8-12BB.

c) It will also get you a little more action on your high pocket pairs.

Now I posed this question on 2+2 and they all recommended that I raise enough to put my opponents all in. Maximum pressure. You get called less, and if you do get called and double up you win even more chips. I think I'll try the min raise the next time and see what happens.

Golf Tournament and New Monitor

2008-12-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

I played in the Member-Member with Bill last weekend at Phoenix CC. Bill claimed that he should be deemed a Saint since he performed a miracle and convinced Alisha that he could play golf for 3 straight days.

It was a stressful tournament as after the first few holes on Friday, my back tightened up and I was sure I was going to be on my back the rest of the weekend. For once, it actually loosened up on Saturday and felt 100% on Sunday. Usually if I feel the twinge, it means the full blown spasm is coming soon.

We were only 4 shots back of the leaders in our flight going into the last round. However the format was a modified chapman. I don't know why it's called a "chapman" but it's alternate shot with a dash of scramble. We both hit our tee shots, then switch balls (I hit his tee shot and vice versa), then we pick the best of the two and alternate shots from there. This format will test the bounds of friendship in a hurry if you have any competitive spirit.

In spite of Bill's excitement to play 3 straight days of golf, he showed up 10 minutes before our tee time on Sunday and played with no warm up. Any kind of warm up would have been a good idea since it was 50 degrees and the greens were running extra fast. So because he was cold and the jacket he wore was restricting his swing, he managed to put 4 balls in the water on the first 6 holes. I seriously wanted to quit and go home when we made the turn. I have never seen him play that bad. Especially when he's motivated to play. I don't know where we finished in the flight but with a net 77, I'm sure it was near the bottom.

The big news for poker is that I bought a new wide screen monitor. Now I can tile 6 Full Tilt tables without any over lap. I can also do it for Poker Stars but they are a little small for my taste. I gave it a test run tonight and I played 5 tables of .25-50 No Limit on Poker Stars. I managed to play 433 hands in one hour. Unfortunately I lost about $40, but it was good to know that I did not have too much trouble handling the volume.

This will come in handy if I ever decide to bonus whore or try to rack up FPP's on Poker Stars for some of their benefits.

I think for the most part, I will continue with 2 tables at higher stakes and concentrate on becoming a better player.

Plus the new monitor has a built in webcam so I will be able to video conference with people on skype once I sign up for an account.

A New Move

2008-12-08T19:58:00.000-08:00

andyH333 is a good tight aggressive player. I have over 200 hands of history on him where he almost never limps in a pot and raises about 22% of his hands preflop.

jimbobjones2006 is a loose passive player. My stats show him playing 38% of his hands preflop (the ideal is 15-22%) and only raising 8% of the time.

I have seen andyH333 raise jimbo after he limps a couple of times. It looks like a standard isolation play. Punishing the limpers is something I like to do.

In the example below, jimbo limps, and andy raises. I am in the small blind. For once I make a play based on the situation and not my cards. jimbo is probably weak and doesn't have a hand that can call two raises. andyH333 is probably not that strong since he is just trying to isolate jimbo. I raise to $15 and win the pot.

I must be getting comfortable at these levels because not once in the hand did I think about "oh my gosh it's $15 I just bet!" The great players are this comfortable at every level. I am working on it.

FullTiltPoker Game #9397726407: Table Requa (6 max) - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:48:38 ET - 2008/12/08
Seat 1: mmmpotbrownies ($101.40)
Seat 2: Poker_Bully1 ($119.30)
Seat 3: You Dont See Me ($205.60)
Seat 4: GreatWent ($106.70)
Seat 5: jimbobjones2006 ($145.40)
Seat 6: andyh333 ($106)
mmmpotbrownies posts the small blind of $0.50
Poker_Bully1 posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to Poker_Bully1 [6d 5c]
You Dont See Me folds
GreatWent folds
jimbobjones2006 calls $1
andyh333 raises to $4.50
mmmpotbrownies folds
Poker_Bully1 has 15 seconds left to act
Poker_Bully1 raises to $15
jimbobjones2006 fold
sandyh333 has 15 seconds left to act
andyh333 is sitting out
andyh333 has timed out
andyh333 folds
Uncalled bet of $10.50 returned to Poker_Bully1
Poker_Bully1 mucksPoker_Bully1 wins the pot ($10.50

Bubble Boy and 60 Minutes

2008-11-30T20:15:00.000-08:00

Well it finally happened in a live tournament. I played the $85 afternoon tournament at Casino Arizona on Friday afternoon. There were 180 players and they would pay 20 players. I finished in 21st.

It did not take me long to build up a stack in this tournament. I was all in by the second hand of the tournament. I had AcQc on the button. There was one limper and I raised to 200. The blinds folded and the limper called. The flop was Jc-Td-6c. He checked to me and I bet 300. He raised me to 1000. I had about 3000 left.

Before I did anything, I stopped to try and read his hand. He limped before the flop, which could mean something bad like he flopped a set of 10's or 6's. He could also do this with Ace-Jack or a draw. I figure that I need to accumulate chips quickly in these tournaments and even if he has a set, I still have 12 clean outs to the nuts. I move all in.

He says, "Hmmmm I guess I call" He turns over Q9 offsuit. What a dummy! My hand held up and I was off to a quick start. This player still had about 500 in chips left after he lost the hand because he had received a starting chip bonus for his cash game play before the tournament. I tried to finish him off a little while later when I had an over pair to his pair of 5s. Unfortunately he spiked a 5 on the river and eventually had built back up to a decent stack. I did not see him after our table broke, but he did not make it to the last 2 tables.

Once again, most of the players in this tournament were way too tight and passive. I think there was one point in the tournament where my raises went uncalled before the flop 10 straight times. Don't get me wrong, I was picking my spots well and not playing too crazy. I was picking up legitimate raising hands 90% of the time with the others being bluffs in late position or against tight blinds.

I also managed to win my races when I needed to. I don't consider it good or bad luck when I win a race, but if you win a few in a row, then it's definitely a good run of cards. Just before the last break, I won a big race for 3/4 of my stack with AK vs QQ. That left me with 30,000 in chips and the blinds at 1,000-2,000. We had 3 tables left and 21 players. 20th-11th place paid $100. The decent money was in the top 3 spots.

The last big tournament score at CAZ, I was a little miffed at myself because I felt like I could have taken advantage of the tight players more to build up my stack for the final table. Since I didn't really care if I "win" my money back, I decided that I was going to raise every time it was folded to me, until someone pushed back. Why not, since no one had pushed back thus far?

The one problem with this plan was that there were 2 other players that had me covered by 10-20k. One was three to my right and the other was 3 to my left. So basically one of them was going to have position on me in every hand.

I was under the gun plus one for the first hand back on the bubble. I picked up 97 offsuit and raised to 5k. Everyone behind me folded, except the big stack on the button who raised me to 10k. The blinds both folded. Now I really wanted to throw my hand away, but it was only 5k more to call into a 18k pot. The math says call, so that's what I did.

The flop was A-T-6 rainbow. I checked my inside straight draw praying he'd give me a free look at it. He checked behind. The turn was another ten. Since he checked and didn't seem to like the flop, I thought I would bet and maybe convince him I had a ten. I bet 8k and he min raises me again to 16k. I contemplate calling and hoping for the miracle, but I decide if I fold, I can still push all in on another hand and win the blinds a couple of times or find a better spot. He told me he had Ace-Ten for a full house. Nice timing there Lar!

I fold the next few hands including the blinds and I'm left with 9k. It's folded to me in the cutoff and I raise with Jack-Eight offsuit all in. I raised because one of the short stacks was in the big blind and it seemed he was trying to squeek into the money. Especially since there was another player on my right who only had 4,000 left. Unfortunately he called me with King Ten. I did not get lucky, except for the fact that he had less money than me, so I was still alive with 3,500 in chips.

I folded the remaining hands until it got to my blind. Unfortunately there was a raise and a call before it got to me and I looked at Ace-8. I could not come up with a decent reason to fold, so I put the rest of my chips in and hoped to get lucky. The two other players checked down all the streets as they came out - Q-J-9-2-10. Hey I have a straight, that has to be good right? Nope, they both had Ace-King.

I still think my strategy was a good one and that I just got a bit unlucky to run into some decent hands behind me. I do think I could have found a fold on the 9-7 just on the fact that I would still have 25k left and enough to scare people from calling me on future raises. The good news is that they are having a "free roll" for a $25 service fee in December for all the bubble boys and girls from the tournaments throughout the year. So I have a chance to redeem my pride.

The other big poker news is that 60 Minutes finally aired their expose on the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet cheating scandals. Overall I thought the piece was pretty fair. They definitely stuck it to UB and AP as well as Russ Hamilton. The main focus was on how the players playing the game caught the cheaters, not the companies themselves, and how the cheating players had yet to charged or prosecuted for any crimes.

The big problem with the story was that they failed to differentiate that playing online poker is not illegal. Owning an online poker company in the US is illegal. Funding the poker account is now illegal for the banks. But it's always been legal to play.

They also did not bring up anything about the passage of the UIGEA or the legislation that is out there to regulate online poker. The Washington Post will be publishing a companion piece tomorrow discussing whether online poker should be "legal" and regulated, so maybe some important players in Washington will see this article and look further into the subject. It's really going to suck if the banks actually start enforcing these regulations.

Another Win at Casino AZ

2008-11-26T15:34:00.000-08:00

I passed a milestone this week. Back in January, I had set my annual life goals for 2008. I made goals relating to life, work, golf, tennis, and poker. One of my goals for poker was to increase my bankroll to at least $5,000 using the "Chris Ferguson" method of bankroll management.

While playing online last weekend, I managed to cross the $5,000 total bankroll mark for about 10 seconds. The plan was to pass it and quit so I could at least say I was there for one day. However as I passed it, I was dealt pocket jacks before I could close out of the table. In short I lost about $70 on that hand, so I was beneath the goal again.

Yesterday, I went to the Casino Arizona after work to play in the 5-150 game. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but I am starting to recognize some of the players at my table. A person of Asian descent, named Dan was on my left and he said he played with me two weeks ago. The younger, blond haired guy, who kept me from reraising my pocket Aces last week was at the table. And for the third time, the older man who is a member of Whisper Rock Golf Club, was on my right.

For a brief moment in time, one of biggest fish I have ever seen, was sitting at the table as well. I believe he is of Indian (the country) descent. I think he was playing last week and someone at my table pointed him out at another table. He said that he just kept moving all in for $150 and driving everyone nuts at the table. This time he was at my table and after watching the first rotation of blinds, I was starting to get excited. He was awful! Unfortunately, before I had a chance to play a hand with him, he went broke and asked for a table change. The rest of us at the table joked that we were all going to go up to the front desk and request a table change to his new table but no one actually had the balls to go up and do it. When I left for the day, I saw him at the ATM pulling out $1,000. I hope I see him again.

I ended up winning $200 for the session with most of it from just two hands. I flopped two pair and got an old man drawing to a flush to call $210 to do it. Then the very next hand I picked up pocket Jacks and raised in position. A shortish stack called for about 25% of his remaining chips. When the flop came out 8 high, he moved all in and I called. He had Ace-King and did not improve.

Before these hands, I was down about $100 from one hand. It was the most interesting one of the session so here it is:

I have $250 in front of me and Ac8c in middle position. There is a raise in front of me to $15. I call, Dan calls behind me, and the big blind calls. 4 players to the flop for $60.

The flop is Qc-Qh-9c. It's checked to me and I bet $30 with my club flush draw. Dan calls behind me and the other two players fold.

The turn is a 4d. Now I look at Dan and he has about $150 left. He could be on a weaker draw than me or he has a Queen. I decide to bet $60. He thinks for about a second and moves all in. So it's $90 more to win $60+$60+$60+$150=$330. So it's not quite the right odds to call assuming my flush wins the pot. He could have Q-9 and I would be drawing dead. He could hit the King or Jack of clubs and crush me there, so I think it's a pretty fundamental fold.

I initially bet on the flop, hoping to take down the pot. I figured with the board being so draw heavy that someone with a Queen would raise immediately to price out the draws. When Dan called, I thought there was some chance he was drawing, although a Queen was definitely in his range.

I think the bet on the turn was probably a bad play on my part. I think that bet folds out the worse draws and only gets called or raised by better hands. Plus I almost made it enough to force me to throw good money after bad and chase the flush. If I check, I give Dan the chance to make a silly small bet and give me the odds to chase the flush or bet enough to make me give up the hand. Plus if he checks behind with say a King high flush draw or a straight draw, then I can bluff the river, or better yet, hit a club and win the rest of his stack.

Can you win a big 4 way pot with Aces?

2008-11-20T19:15:00.000-08:00

After another brutal day in the financial markets I decided to relieve some stress by playing the 5-150 game at Casino Arizona. My luck was not any better for the first 2 hours as I was card dead and decided to run bluffs against the two biggest calling stations at the casino. To be fair, on one of the bluffs, I happened to run into top two pair and made a bad read. He stared right at me when he bet which I thought was the classic tell of strong means weak. I guess strong means strong in this case. Plus this was early in the session before I realized how bad these players were.

So I had dug myself a $200 hole by 5:15 PM and it was time to go. I had one hand left before the blinds hit me and I picked up pocket Aces. I raised to $20. The high school basketball coach on my left called, one more call, loose hispanic player raises to $65. The other big calling station calls and then the old man goes all in for $140.

I of course try to raise the full $150 again and make it $290 total. Then the player in the 7 seat, who was not in the hand, tells the dealer that I am not allowed to raise. I ask for the floor supervisor to come over and straighten this out, since the basketball coach and the player on his left had folded, and the other caller, had put in more chips to call my raise.

The supervisor came over and explained that there is a 3 raise limit (due to the game technically being a "limit" game). So the dealer gave me back $150 and the other player $150 and we see the flop 4 handed with one all in. $600 in the pot and I am convinced there is no way that my Aces are going to hold up.

The flop is Qs-8s-3s. Oy vey! I'm pretty sure someone probably has pocket Queens. I notice that everyone starts looking at their hole cards again. I say, "why don't we all take a moment to check our hole cards for a spade?" I peek at my cards and lo and behold I have the Ace of spades.

The loose player on my left tries to argue that I checked. Everyone else at the table talks him down after they all confirm that I said, "let's check our hole cards". I bet $150 and loose player calls and other loose player calls. Sheesh I may just have the best hand! If someone hit a set on a monotone board, you have to raise right? $1050 in the pot.

The turn is an Ace. All right! Now this pot is all mine. I am going to value town here. Rats! I only have $27 left in my stack. I bet it and get two callers. $1131 in the pot.

The river is a deuce and the two other players make their small bets for a side pot. The side pot is won by the first loose player on my left with pocket Queens. The main pot is won by me when the old man rolls over pocket Kings.

SHIP IT!

This $1,131 pot was by far the largest I had ever won, breaking my previous $700 record from my trip to Vegas last December. It took me 4 hands to stack and rack all my chips. I apologized for leaving so soon after cleaning everyone out and left with a $606 profit. This definitely cheered me up after a bleh day at work.

Cheating? Misclick? Stupid?

2008-11-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

I was not involved in this hand, but I couldn't believe it when it was over and the cards were turned up.

FullTiltPoker Game #9033243967: Table Highland (6 max) - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:39:20 ET - 2008/11/17
Seat 1: KORsung ($101.05)
Seat 2: Poker_Bully1 ($96.70)
Seat 3: CaseAce84 ($99.05)
Seat 4: MTY-BEAT ($118.55)
Seat 5: Ship it Strange ($105.60)
Seat 6: Fighting Tilt ($124.40)
Fighting Tilt posts the small blind of $0.50
KORsung posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #5

*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to Poker_Bully1 [Tc 5c]
Poker_Bully1 folds
CaseAce84 folds
MTY-BEAT raises to $2
Ship it Strange folds
Fighting Tilt folds
KORsung calls $1

*** FLOP *** [3h 4d Jd]
KORsung checks
MTY-BEAT bets $1
KORsung raises to $10
MTY-BEAT calls $9

*** TURN *** [3h 4d Jd] [Kc]

KORsung bets $24.50
MTY-BEAT calls $24.50

*** RIVER *** [3h 4d Jd Kc] [6s]

KORsung bets $64.55, and is all in
MTY-BEAT calls $64.55

*** SHOW DOWN ***
KORsung shows [3d 4c] two pair, Fours and Threes
MTY-BEAT mucks
KORsung wins the pot ($199.60) with two pair, Fours and Threes

*** SUMMARY ***Total pot $202.60 Rake $3
Board: [3h 4d Jd Kc 6s]
Seat 1: KORsung (big blind) showed [3d 4c] and won ($199.60) with two pair, Fours and Seat 4: MTY-BEAT mucked [2d 9d]

MTY-BEAT bet, called the raise on the flop with the flush draw, check called the turn, and then called the river with 9 high!

Now I thought that maybe they were colluding so I looked up where they say they are from. KORsung is from South Korea and MTY-BEAT is from Mexico. I don't think they are close friends since they are half way around the world from each other.

I did manage to take the rest of MTY-BEAT's money when he went all in with middle pair and I called with top pair, top kicker.

Should I send this hand history to Full Tilt security? Any thoughts from my readers?