WSOP 2010

My return to Vegas for the WSOP is just 2 days away! This will be my 4th consecutive summer living in Vegas for the series (and of course Bellagio Cup) and 5th consecutive year playing the main event. It's kind of hard to believe I've been doing this for so long, but I'm still really enjoying it.

The plan this summer isn't really set in stone. I'm living at luckychewy's (Andrew) house with him, Tony (Bond), (King)Dan, Aaron (aejones), Ashton (TheAshman), and hopefully Dani (ansky) as well. Anyone who has met these guys or seen 2 month 2 million, the TV show from last summer, knows this a pretty elite crew of awesome dudes. All of them are of course well known for taking poker seriously and printing dollar bills, but around half of them are probably about as well known now for their exploits partying and chasing girls. In short, this summer is gonna be fun. That being said poker is still always first priority, but I'll be playing it by ear as to how many events I end up playing. I could see myself playing every event I possibly can, actually that's probably fairly likely, but I could also see myself skipping a few more events to play golf, watch the World Cup, and run around the desert in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. Don't worry mom it's a line from a movie.

That being said I've really had no luck at the World Series over the years and I'd very much like to improve my record there and make some final tables, money, and maybe some bracelets. I intend to focus more on non-holdem events again because I enjoy them more, though I will obviously be playing most of the bigger buyin NLHE events as well. As I mentioned last time I'll be starting with the $50K players championship. Nothing like starting the summer 50 grand in the hole =/. Whatever happens this summer it's definitely going to be stupid fun one way or another, I can't wait to get down there and get it started.

Mike

SCOOP-a-loop!

Hello, people of the internet. I've been on the mega tournament grind for the last 9 days and it's been quite a ride. With the SCOOP going on Stars I've been playing incredibly long hours and $10-20k worth of buy-ins at least every day. I've cashed for somewhere in the general vicinity of $120k in that time, which sounds great until you consider my buy-ins add up to roughly that much as well. Today was my biggest score, $50k for 2nd place in the $500 mid SCOOP PLO 6-handed event. It was disappointing to lose heads up especially as I started with a decent chip lead but oh well. Last weekend I finished 3rd twice in the Friday night fight and Sudnay $50+rebuys for a combined $50k as well. I've had a few other close calls in SCOOP events but come up short finishing in the 13th-16th range.

Tomorrow is a huge Sunday with the $10K SCOOP main event as well as several other big SCOOP events on top of the usual Sunday stuff. Hopefully I'll win lots of gold. After SCOOP is over I'll probably be avoiding poker for the most part until the series other than trying to sharpen my mixed games a little. I'm planning to play the $50K 8-game mix championship. Hard to say if I'll have an edge or not but it sure sounds like a ton of fun! Besides, I just play for the glory.

Mike

Back on the High Stakes Grind

I haven't been playing a ton of poker lately, but when I have played it's mostly been high stakes PLO and some bigger mixed games. The big action has mostly been at 200/400 cap plo with the occasional deeper stacked game mixed in. I also have played some of the 7 and 8-game mixes when the lineup doesn't seem too bad for practice and because hopefully I might have a small edge. It's been a fairly strange run for me lately where I've been up and down a lot with the usual biggish swings but overall I've been doing well.

The strange part is according to the adjusted all-in EV column on Holdem Manager I've run between $200-300k above expectation in all-in pots over most of this run, and if I hadn't been I'd be losing a decent amount. This means that in pots in which I've been all-in, once my hand has been turned over and there's no more betting I've been a huge luckbox. This is just one way in which luck manifests itself in these games and I still feel like overall I've played pretty well. I've just been very unlucky in being on the wrong side of a lot of coolers (another kind of luck), but very lucky in drawing out of them. That's what it seems like to me anyways so I still feel good about my chances in these games in the long run, but it's something I'll have to keep an eye on.

The other day I was playing a big session and decided to take a chance and play some deeper stacks I had run up. I ended up playing what I believe are the two biggest cash pots of my life against cts:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5314245 - I think it goes without saying this is a dream hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5314252 - This one took a pretty serious chunk out of how much I was running above expectation in all-in pots.

I'm still not planning to play many tournaments before WPT Championship, a few FTOPS events, and SCOOP. Probably this Easter Sunday I'll play a proper tourney grind session, but otherwise most of my play will likely be biggish cash.

Mike

Quick Update!

Let's see what I've been up to since I last posted here. After the $1K rebuy I got 3rd in the $10K PLO and 5th in the $10K Horse at Aussie Millions. They were both only ~25 player fields so the payout wasn't a whole lot but it did make for a very successful series overall. More importantly, it moved me into 9th place on the all-time Canadian tournament player money list:

9th Michael Watson $ 2,654,042
10th Mike McDonald $ 2,627,136

Eat it timex.

After the series ended Tony, Dan, Chewy and I partied for a bunch of days in Sydney then headed to Adelaide for the ANZPT event there. I went deep in that event but busted just short of the money. After that I went back to Melbourne and stayed at Tony and Jarred's place for another week. I mostly just grinded FTOPS and other online tourneys for the week, but I had no results to speak of. Finally, I left Australia last Tuesday and headed to LA for the LA Poker Classic.

Since arriving in LA I've busted the $5k prelim and $10k WPT main event. On Sunday I play the $25k high roller event. People who watch my PokerSavyy videos will have noticed that I haven't made any in a very long time. I've decided to stop making videos there altogether. I basically didn't really enjoy making them anymore and the money was never a big incentive compared to the stakes I play. I want to continue trying to balance poker with other things better, but I still have a lot of poker goals so the time I spend at poker I think is better spent just playing and working on my game.

The only other thing I have to write about is that I've been back on the high stakes PLO grind. As always it's been really swingy and I haven't played that many hands, but I'm currently on a decent upswing so that's happy.

Mike

$1K+Rebuys TR

The next day after golfing was the $1K+rebuys NL event. In the rebuy period I splashed around a ton and managed to nail some some flops and get paid off to build a decent stack. I took the triple add-on even though I'm not entirely sure it's mathematically correct (I guess it probably depends on how big I think my edge is) so I was in for $5k. I kept winning a lot of pots and building my stack but there were two German players at my table who I could not beat all-in no matter what I had who took turns doubling through me. Eventually I got moved to another table and some stuff happened and I build my stack up a little out of the danger zone, likely through cardracking because that's mostly what I did this tournament. Then I got moved to another table and in quick succession started running good against the Germans there (a lot of the German guys came to Australia this year).

First I 3-bet an UTG raise from an aggressive German player with AKo. He 4-bets me and folds to my shove. Right after that I open KK and get 2 calls. He squeezes from the BB, I ship, and he calls JJ. I finally hold all-in against a German. Shortly after that I open QQ in the HJ, another German in the BB crams his 20BB with JTs and doesn't get there. Now I have a lot of chips. I kind of chip up more to close to 100K in chips but bleed off 20K or so to make the final table of 10 with 78k. That put me 3/10 but my friend James Obst has like 190k and Florian Langmann, a German Team Pokerstars pro who was at my first table doubling through me has ~120k. Last year's Aussie Million champion and all-around good bloke Stewart Scott was 4th in chips.

At the final table they were all lined up on my left. It was a nightmare seat draw. Florian, then James, then Stew. But I just cardracked so it didn't matter.

Hand 1: French player with Bwin patch on opens HJ. I flat button with AJo and one of the blinds calls. Flop AJx rainbow he c-bets, I call, blind folds. Turn J, he check/shoves KJ drawing dead.

Hand 2: I open 66 in the HJ, Florian calls, James calls button. Flop K64r, I bet 15.6k (1/2 pot) James calls. Turn A I bet 30k he calls. River 4 I bet 55k he tank/folds.

Hand 3: James minraises button to 8k with ~110K I call. Flop Qs9s6c c/c. Turn Tc I bet 12.6k he calls. River 2c I value bet 27.5k and get called by worse. I think this value bet was likely too thin and I was lucky to have the best hand and actually get called.

Hand 4: Florian open CO, James shoves button, I shove KK in BB and hold vs 22.

Hand 5: Florian opens button with like 100k at 3k/6k, I cram A4dd in the BB and beat AJo.

Hand 6: I'm heads up with Gary Benson, some people would recognize him as the guy who does all the Aussie cash for online money transfers. I have a huge chip lead HU and double him once with 89o against QJ. He's playing very passively so the plan is just to grind him down, but then I get it in pre with 88 against AJ instead for 20bb and win the flip to ship the tournament. First paid ~130k AUD.

Since then I've busted the main and the $5K HU event. I'm trying to decide between playing online tourneys today (UBOC is a $1k and 2x guarantee week on FTP) and the 10k PLO event. Leaning towards playing live again at the moment.

Mike

Part 2: United Strikes Back

OK picking up where we left off. I arrive in LAX on time and have to find my way across from terminal 2 to 6. Changing terminals in LA is pretty annoying as you have to go outside and cross streets and stuff but I eventually figured out where I was going. Unfortunately, I was flying United because they were quite significantly cheaper than the other airlines at the time I got around to booking. I learned my lesson about this two years ago and vowed never to fly United to Australia again, but like I said I figured the difference wasn't worth paying more than twice as much money. The main problem with United is that economy seats do not have their own entertainment system, there is just one TV at the front of each section of the cabin and you have to watch whatever they put on like it's the mid-90s or something. On a 14 hour flight or whatever this is extremely annoying. Luckily I knew to bring a book to read.

So we board the flight and as usual we are delayed taking off. Nothing out of the ordinary. Eventually the captain announces there is a problem fueling the plane and they are trying to fix it. The longer this goes on the more clear it begins to seem that they are not going to find a way to fix it. After about 3 hours or maybe more we have to disembark the plane and wait in line with a million other people for a hotel voucher. Our flight is rescheduled for 11am. I got to the hotel around 3 or 3:30 and slept for maybe 4 hours since I wanted to get a shuttle to the airport before everyone else on my flight got up. Upon arrival at the airport I learn the flight has now been delayed another 11 hours so I am officially a full day behind schedule after all. They offer hotel vouchers again but I decide to just stay at the airport and play online and watch sports, one of the advantages of being on pacific time is that evening games on the east coast start at 4. I proceeded to lose $50K playing 1k/2k 8-game and 200/400 cap PLO. I've billed United for this and threatened to sue, but either they didn't get my e-mail or they are calling my bluff.

Eventually it's time to board and everything goes smoothly this time. The flight sucks with them playing crappy movies that I try to force myself to watch. I fail, but luckily they put me to sleep for a little bit. No idea how much I actually slept but it wasn't heaps by any stretch. We eventually land in Sydney and I get to wait two hours there for my connection. At this point I obviously regret not paying the extra money for a direct flight on Qantas or some other reasonable airline. Anyways, the flight is uneventful and I arrive 11:30am, with plans to play the bounty event at 12:30 if I can.

Customs in Australia was hilarious. I forgot to declare sporting equipment (I brought my golf clubs) but they were super friendly about it and much more interested in talking about my playing poker for a living and telling me how awesome that is! Oh and you have to fill out this form for the money it'll only take a few minutes. In retrospect, I was lucky that I got female customs agents as they were clearly taken by my Canadian accent and natural charm (and the tick in the >10K currency box). Wearing the same clothes for two days and being jet-lagged as shit I no doubt had an irresistible glow (read: smell) about me. At first I thought it was just that Aussies are more chill and laid back in general, but in hindsight it was clearly my good looks and charisma that got me through customs with so little hassle.

I ended up making Tony 40 minutes late for the tournament so he could let me in to drop off my bags and get cleaned up, but that's about 37 minutes longer than he lasted in the last one he played so I figure I was doing him a favour. I eventually crossed the street to the casino and got the last seat in the bounty event. I could already tell I was destined to win it to make up for all the bad luck I had on the trip there. I was envisioning the smug, cocky look on my face as I would tell the story, "But then I shipped the bounty event for $150k, so I guess it was all worth it after all." I busted two hours later.

Basically all my friends busted around the same time though, so we started drinking, ate dinner, and then I passed out at 8 from the jet lag and alcohol combination. The next day I went golfing with Stevo and Chris on a glorious summer day in Melbourne, and couldn't help but think; "Well, I guess the trip was all worth it in the end".

Mike

Toronto to Melbourne: Part 1

The itineary was long but pretty straightforward. Leave Toronto 5:45pm EST Jan 17, arrive LAX 8:15pm PST. Depart LAX 10:20pm, arrive Sydney 7:30am Aussie time Jan 19. Leave Sydney 9:40am arrive Melbourne 11:20am. No close connections, and I got to Toronto airport early at 4pm. What could go wrong?

The only possible issue was that due to a set of strange circumstances from last year I had more than 10K in AUD cash on me. Normally I avoid traveling with cash whenver possible (and carrying cash on my person at all for that matter) and just wire money ahead, but getting raped on exchanging the money into CAD or USD and then back into AUD is stupid when I can just carry the cash at no cost. For those of you who have never carried large amounts of cash across the border the whole thing is pretty easy. You tick the box to declare it on your customs card. They take you to secondary inspection and ask you some questions which you answer truthfully and you fill out some extra paperwork for the money. Maybe if you're unlucky they search your bags. The whole thing should never really take more than an extra 30 minutes worst case scenario.

So I stroll into US customs 90 minutes before my flight knowing even with all the silly new US flight regulations I have heaps of time. The first sign of something weird is when the customs agent sees I've ticked yes to the currency question, she asks if I've already declared it with Canadian customs. I'm confused by the question and answer that I have not since I'm starting my trip here. I proceed to the secondary inspection room and there are way more people than I've ever seen in there. I hand them my card then have to sit for 5 minutes before they call my name. I roll my bags up to the desk with a male agent this time and again the first thing they ask is if I have declared my money with Canadian customs already? Again confused, I reply that I have not. He informs me that I was supposed to file the paperwork with them before I got to US customs. I ask how recently this change in procedure was implemented. He informs me that it's always been that way.
It has not always been that way. It's *possible* that it was always technically supposed to have been enforced that way, but it certainly never has been in the past. After a couple more questions he passes me the standard US currency form and says he's going to call Canadian customs and explain the situation, try to get someone to come up from there. He informs me further that I will have to fill out the paperwork again in LA saying I'm taking the money out of the country this time. The absurdity of this rule is somewhat mind-blowing. He says I will have to find US customs in LA and fill out the paper work. First of all, I have no idea how to find US customs in LA. Would they even let me back there since I'm already legally in their fucking country? I'm certain that if I ask someone this in LA they will look at me like I'm retarded. Obviously the same thing applies to finding Canadian customs in Toronto like I was "supposed to". And what happens when driving across the border? Is this a flying-only regulation? It really doesn't make sense, maybe US and Canadian customs could just try communicating the information with each other instead?

I fill out the paperwork and he is able to get a Canadian agent to come with their paperwork. He informs me that technically Canadian customs is allowed to seize the money since I came to US customs first but that there shouldn't be a problem. He was actually very friendly the whole time and he and the agent next to him made a bunch of remarks about how ridiculous so many of the policies they have to follow are, but as they are merely "peons" they just follow the rules. The funniest part was when converting the AUD into USD he got a number greater than the number in AUD. Obviously he immediately recognized this could not be right, but after double checking regulations he just left it that way saying it's obviously wrong but that's how he was told to do it and what does he care really. It's fairly likely this was still his mistake actually but either way I got a good laugh out of it.

Two Canadian customs agents arrive, I fill out their paperwork and they want to see/count the money for some reason. They leave, the US guy does the quickest, least thorough "search of my bags" in history and waves me along finally. This whole procedure took quite a while however and I am in big time trouble and there is a decent chance I may miss my flight. Luckily there is basically no line at security. There is one guy in front of me and one guy who already went through and is having his carry-on checked. This proceeds to last several minutes though as I am sitting there enraged about the possibility of missing my flight. I know it will likely move back my itinerary an entire day if I do unless I can catch another flight to LA in the next hour or so, which may not even exist. I finally get through security with no hiccups and start running for my gate. I stop running about 5 seconds later when I see the secondary search point, now standard for any flight to the US since the events over the holidays, and the lengthy queue waiting there. I am so fucked. My flight is scheduled to takeoff in less than 15 minutes so boarding may be almost over already, and it will take at least that long to get through this line. I'm just praying my flight is delayed at this point, though this seems a very reasonable hope knowing Air Canada.

Salvation: A lady with a walkie-talkie calls my name. "Is there a Mr.Watson traveling to LA in this line?". I raise my hand and go to her and now I am in the front of the queue. Now they know I am here and won't leave without me. That was too close. In their thorough search at the security checkpoint they obviously find my cash (and would have even if I'd tried to hide it so don't bother). I tell them I've declared it. They ask for proof and I tell them that's not how it works, I don't have any. Your job is security for the flight not customs I already went through those and that's why I'm late you idiot (obviously I only actually said the that's why I'm late part). Though I can't blame them for wanting to be sure. Now I stand there another 5 minutes at least as someone runs to customs to double check on me. Fan-fucking-tastic. Also, they had the cash out in plain view for some of this. Clearly no one else in the line was on my flight at this point but show some fucking discretion buddy. I mean the airport is a pretty safe place obviously but seriously use some common sense.

Finally the runner comes back and confirms it's all good, the nice lady with the walkie-talkie points me to my gate and I run there even though they are clearly waiting for me and it's only like the 3rd gate down. I get on the plane, and everyone is already in their seats looking annoyed with me. OK maybe I imagined that part. But I made my flight, and due to favbourable winds we arrived on time in LA anyways. I was still going to be off to Australia that night. Or so I thought.

Check back soon for Part 2: United Strikes Back.

Mike

PCA, Niagara and Stuff

Hey guys! If you've been following my tweets you'll know I was able to min-cash the main event at PCA for $15K. I also played the Half NLHE half PLO event and $1600 side event there but had no luck. Then I flew back to Toronto and drove down to play the $5k event at Niagara Falls instead of staying to play the either the $5k event or high roller event in the Bahamas. I felt really good about that decision when the field consisted of 155 players of which there were probably less than 10 I would consider good. For such a big buy-in it was great value but unfortunately I played a little sloppy and didn't catch many hands in the fast structure to bust early. I leave for the Aussie Millions on Sunday and I'm pumped to get down there to enjoy the weather and try to win some tournaments.

One interesting hand from PCA main on Day 2: I rarely pick up solid reads live but this was one case I should have trusted one.

I open 5h5 in the HJ and the BB, who is a middle aged guy who has shown he's capable of being spewy aggro, calls. The flop comes KT6hh and I check behind. I'd raised his blind several times and he'd always folded to my continuation bets, but he'd shown he's capable of checkraising with air and I felt like I might get played back at a lot this time. The turn is the 3h and he bets like half pot, I call. River 2s, He insta-shoves for like 1.5 times the pot. Whenever I'd seen him act so quickly before he'd always been bluffing, plus the overbet from this type of player can often be a bluff. I didn't end up feeling sure enough of my read at that point and folded, and he showed A9dd =/ I saw the tell once or twice more after that before he busted and it was rock solid, oh well.

I managed to run my stack back up after that hand and after we got in the money I got AA all-in against Jon Aguiar's A9 and lost. I don't think I've taken any other bad beats like that deepish in big live tourneys so I guess I was due for one, oh well. I actually never got out to the beach and water park once the entire trip. The weather was mostly bad though, there were only 1 or 2 days that were nice enough but I felt more in the mood to play poker anyways. Timex ended up winning the $1600 side event for ~$150K.

I played online the last couple nights but had no luck despite making several deep runs. If I keep going deep though I like my chances to hit a big score soon.

Mike

2010

I guess I should start with a quick 2009 recap. I didn't make a boatload of money this year compared to 2008 (I'd be moderately surprised if I ever make more money from poker in a year than I did in 2008), but I think I succeeded a lot this year overall. I lived a healthier lifestyle, both in terms of eating (a little) better and working out more and socializing more. I bought myself my own place in downtown Toronto that I love, finally got around to getting laser eye surgery (which went fantastic, though I don't think I've written about it here at all), and made a lot of new friends and reconnected with some old ones. Strictly speaking I've had a solid year poker-wise, but that's mostly because at the beginning of the year when I was playing nosebleed games online I went on a big downswing in December and rebounded in January. I've done well in online tournaments as well and didn't lose too much playing live.

So the plan for 2010 is pretty vague I guess, just keep living a fun balanced life. Hopefully that will involve a bit more poker than 2009, I'd like to put up some big scores on the live circuit again this year or hit a few really big online scores. I'm not sure if I really have much in the way of goals for cash games. The big games haven't been running at all lately, and when they do they're mostly mixed games. I definitely would like to improve at the limit games so I can feel comfortable playing those more, but I'm not sure how realistic it is that I'll actually do that. I'm at the point where I feel pretty competent at all the games, and the work required to go from solid to expert is a lot, for relatively minimal improvement. I do intend to keep playing mixed game tournaments though, including the $50K player's championship at WSOP this summer.

To get the year started I am doing my usual fuck winter in Canada trip:

Jan 5-11: PCA in Bahamas

Jan 12-14: Niagara Falls $5k event.

Jan 17-Feb 23: Australia for Aussie Millions in Melbourne, ANZPT Adelaide and general awesomeness.

Feb 24-Mar 3: LA Poker Classic main event and high roller.

After that my live schedule will likely be pretty light until the WSOP. The only tournament I'll be playing for sure is the $25k WPT Championship at Bellagio in mid-April. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone reading this! Let's hope I have a lot to write about in 2010.

Mike

Random Ramblings

I was just reading Daniel Negreanu's blog and he wrote something interesting related to what I've been writing about recently. I don't always agree with Daniel's thoughts on a lot of things but he has a unique perspective that's always worth reading. Anyways, in his latest blog entry he wrote the following:

Money comes, and money goes when you play poker for a living. Whether you have money or not, though, happiness really is completely unrelated to the size of your bankroll. That might not be true for "regular people" who have real jobs, but poker players are a different breed. In fact, before the boom I saw a vicious cycle that I even feel victim to at one point. You work so hard to make money, playing day in and day out, then all of a sudden you've made that money. Now what? All you've known is the grind for so long, so what do you do now? You don't NEED to play poker anymore, you don't NEED to work at all. How do you replace that time?

Well, you either find a passion for playing the game again while balancing a healthy social life, or, you get self-destructive and blow the whole bankroll so you'll once again have a purpose! Back to the grind to build it all over again.


I think Daniel really hit the nail on the head this time. Preceding this was a classic discussion about how great these young online players are, but "we'll see how many are still around in 5-10 years". This is where I think most people are greatly underestimating the younger generation of poker players. I would argue that of all the poker players under 25 who have made say 7-figures plus playing poker, a lot more will hold onto that money, or indeed even build on it, than people think. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that so many young players have such a different background and approach to poker than the older generation would have.

Think about it. 10-20 years ago, before online poker, before poker on TV, how did people get into poker? Two cases seem most likely to me:

1. You played with your buddies growing up and realized you liked the game and were good at it, then decided to take it more seriously.

2. You already spent time in casinos, then saw the poker room one day, decided to give it a shot and got sucked in.

In the second case clearly these are people who were gamblers first, and poker players second. The ones who ended up being successful were clearly very talented people, but still much more likely to have degenerate and/or self-destructive tendencies. Some of these people learned enough self-control as a part of their growth as poker players to get by. That discipline enabled them to stay away from so many of the readily available pitfalls. A lot probably never did. I've read many stories from the older generation of poker players admitting that they would always have gambled regardless. They were just lucky to find a game they could beat to outlet that part of themselves, and muster enough discipline to stick to just poker as their gambling fix.

The first case is not as clear cut, but I think it's at least fair to say that, on average, the type of people who grew up playing poker with their buddies all the time are going to have more gamble in them than the average person. Keep in mind this was before poker was on TV, when it was still viewed as a backroom shady activity in society in general. Deciding to try to play cards for a living is something a lot of people would probably never have done, even if they loved the game and felt they could succeed.

Today though, there are a lot of young players attracted to the game from seeing it on TV. It's a generation where we actively play video games and strategy games of all types. Then poker comes along and these kids who love playing games, and are already very good at games, realize there is actually a game they could make a living, hell maybe even a fortune, playing. Obviously a lot of us were immediately attracted to it. Of course the money and the gambling is what separates poker from other games at its core. But overall, this generation's attraction to poker is more about the enjoyment of the competition of playing the game than the thrill of winning and losing money. There are a lot more young players who are poker players first and gamblers second. Not to say there aren't plenty of young players who have or are going to lose their way and turn into those sad stories Daniel is warning us about. On the whole however, a lot more of these "kids" are going to pass the test of time than ever before. Just don't expect to see all of them still playing in 5-10 years. A lot will likely have moved on to newer more exciting things.

Mike

Caught the Tourney Bug Again

I haven't been able to play every day but lately I've really been back in the mood to grind online tournaments, and with ECOOP (European Championships of Online Poker on iPoker network) going I've had a good excuse to do exactly that. On Wednesday I played all day, Friday I put in a solid afternoon session, and today I just finished a 13 hour Sunday grind session. I've definitely been running pretty hot at tournaments lately and I'm sure that's a big part of why I've been enjoying it so much.

On Wednesday I had a successful day making two final tables and adding two more close calls where I busted with two tables left. I didn't run well at the final tables though and finished 6th and 7th respectively in the Stars $100 rebuy and UB/AP $1K for ~11.5K combined. On Friday I didn't have as much luck, though I did make a deep run in the ECOOP event that day. It was a $100 rebuy PLO8 tourney and I finished 19th. Today I played my usual Sunday schedule starting at 2pm est. It was what has kind of become a common Sunday routine for me. Early on in the day I didn't do well at all and I thought I might even post another blank slate. Then I had a close call in the new AP/UB $500 6-max tourney but busted 9th, and I added another min-cash somewhere. Basically the last tournament on my schedule, the Stars $200r, was again the one I had the most luck in. I feel like I've cashed this tournament around 50% of the time I've played it in the last year or something ridiculous like that. So many Sundays I can recall getting killed all day and thinking "well at least the day is almost over" before making a deep run in this tournament and playing another 3-4 hours. It makes for a very long day, but when you turn a big red number into a pretty green number on the day you don't complain about that. Today I was able to actually close the tournament for the win and just over $37k.

As for Vancouver I had no luck in the tournaments there but I did have a ton of fun hanging out with friends. I really looked at that trip as more of a social visit with a few poker tournaments thrown in anyways so I definitely still consider it a success. OK I feel like my brain is tired from grinding all day and putting together coherent sentences is proving more difficult than it should. No talk about balancing poker and life or what poker teaches us about life or whatever it is I normally ramble on about in this space I'm just going to leave this as essentially a shameless brag post. ECOOP $2500 high roller event this afternoon, I'll be on my grind.

Mike

Online Update and BCPC!

Hey guys, I'm here in Vancouver staying at the River Rock this week for the BC Poker Classic. I played the $1100 event yesterday and busted in the 5th or 6th level. The good news is the tournament easily sold out with 605 runners so I expect the main event to be big as well. It's *only* a $2700 buy-in but I believe it got 7-800 runners last year. I'm not sure if it's capped at 600 again for the main event but hopefully it draws at least that. The main reason I am so excited about this trip is to visit friends in the city that I haven't seen in a while.

This isn't technically my first trip to Vancouver as I was here for maybe a week once when I was 13 or 14 for a chess tournament, but effectively it feels like it is. Everyone always says great things about the city and I feel like if I knew more people out this way there's a good chance I might have ended up living here instead of in Toronto. So far the fact that it's scheduled to rain every single day of my trip isn't endearing the city to me though =P. Once you get past this weather everything I've heard about the city makes me think I'm going to really enjoy it here, and visiting friends I know it's going to be a good time regardless.

So, back to poker. With FTOPS running again I got back on my online tourney grind this past week and it's been going really well. In the 8 day stretch from two Fridays ago to last Friday (playing only a handful of Sunday tourneys) I hit four 5-figure scores, book-ended by winning the Stars $100 1R1A turbo tournament on both Fridays for $30K combined. I don't know what it is about turbo tournaments but I seem to run exceptionally well in them. They are also my favourite to play, I mean what's better than the degeneracy of short stacked play jamming it all-in and gambling it up, every hand can make or break or you poker? In normal tournaments it feels like I put up with the first 3-5 hours just so I can get to that point, but turbos cut right to the chase. No investing half your day for nothing, just 2 hours of pushbotting, sucking out on people with terrible hands, and rarely any tough decisions to agonize over. So if anyone from the online sites is reading this, more turbos with big guarantees please! Now with that sidebar out of the way when I actually go look at tournament results of the last couple months online I've actually done exceptionally well considering I've played very little volume, which is always a good feeling and confidence booster.

As for PokerSavvy, I see that some people want me to do a PLO video, but I really haven't been playing any PLO lately. The 25/50 games seem pretty tough for the most part and I haven't bothered playing. Maybe I'll get around to doing a 5/10 video again at some point but I have a lot of good tournament stuff recorded from the last 2 weeks that I'll probably be looking to do first. Next week when I get back from Vancouver is ECOOP on the iPoker network so I'll probably continue grinding a fair bit. That's all I've got to talk at you about for now, wish me luck in the main event Thursday!

Mike

Success, Motivation, and a Balanced Life

I haven't written on here in quite a while, for the simple reason that I haven't really felt like it. A part of that is I haven't been playing much poker so I haven't had a whole lot to write about. This is compounded by the fact that writing about Sunday online tournaments or whatever no longer really qualifies as worth writing about in my mind unless I happen to win something big. I do tweet about them occasionally. There is a noticeable trend in the careers of many very successful young poker players. In the beginning we are obsessed with poker. We devote all our free time to learning and playing the game. We neglect other aspects of our lives to some extent at least to try to excel at poker. I'm not saying that's the ideal way to go about learning the game or this obsession is entirely a virtue in the grand scheme of the things, but it's a statement of fact of how most good players I know were when we learned this game. It definitely describes me.

I'm not saying this obsession is a bad thing either, just that things aren't black and white. It's a personality trait that helps us excel at things we really like. I certainly wouldn't trade it, poker has clearly had a massively net positive affect on my life, but there is some trade-off with other aspects of life that are important to your overall happiness. There are now a growing number of young players who have been lucky enough to achieve most of their goals in poker. At some point they stop and ask themselves, "what now?". The answer is usually realizing the things you have neglected, cutting back on poker to some extent, and moving towards a more balanced life. Given the sedentary and solitary nature of playing online poker this typically involves some combination of living a more healthy lifestyle and getting out more and meeting people/seeing the world. David Benefield (raptor) is the example that first comes to mind as he wrote extensively about this on his blog (for those who don't know his story he was a very successful young online high stakes cash game player). He definitely took it to more an extreme than most, with strict diets and workout regimens. He even took it so far as to retire from poker for the time being and return to school with the hopes of achieving bigger and better things, or at least something he'll find more personally satisfying.

So what is the point of all this? No, I'm not quitting poker. I don't think I'll do this forever but I really can't think of a better/more enjoyable job for me right now. The point is that my motivation to play poker 24/7 just isn't there right now. The great thing about the poker lifestyle is I have the freedom to do what I want. For a while I was doing my normal poker routine just out of habit and realizing once I got started playing that I didn't really want to be playing. So now before I play I always ask myself "Do you really feel like playing poker right now?". If the answer is no, then I don't. Seems pretty obvious right? But it took me a while to figure that out. Though for the longest time when I learning the game the answer to that question would always have been yes anyways.

So, I've been focused more on other things. I bought myself a great condo in downtown Toronto. I moved in and began the process of decorating said condo. I started working out more and eating a little healthier. Don't worry I'm nowhere near raptor levels on these but I'm making some improvements that work for me. I've been catching up with a lot of friends and making some new ones. And of course, I've been relaxing and being generally lazy as always. That one would be really hard to change. I still read and think about poker a lot. I'm staying pretty sharp, but with a lot less actual hands played. The main practical issue for me from a poker point of view is this is greatly hindering my ability to learn and master new games, but I'm ok with that for now.

So my little break from poker has been productive (by my lazy standards) and positive overall. But, I'm starting to get the itch to travel again. To play big tournaments and go after another big score! Unfortunately there aren't many good live tournaments that I'm interested in left in this calendar year. I'm planning to do the BCPC in Vancouver mid-November, though I'm treating that as more of a social trip than a serious poker trip, and probably the 5 diamond WPT at Bellagio in December. In January I will definitely be doing PCA and my annual trip to Australia for Aussie Millions and to visit all my friends down there.

I intend to get back into writing here more during these trips as there will definitely be tons of fun stories to tell, poker-related and otherwise. The idea of trying to write here at least once weekly is probably a thing of the past though.

Mike

Living, Moving, Grinding

Since I returned home from Vegas poker has really not been first priority for me. I stayed briefly in Toronto then headed home to St. John's for 10 days for a friend's wedding and to visit friends and my parents there. Since I've returned to Toronto my focus has been on helping friends move and finding a new place to live myself. I had always been planning to buy myself a nice spot to live in downtown Toronto, and finally I've gotten around to doing it. I bought a really nice loft-style condo last week and I'm super excited about moving in in a few weeks time. My next project will be furnishing the place, which will probably end up being more of a long term thing once I take care of the more obvious essentials. I don't intend on going too over the top or anything, but definitely I want to make it a pretty ballin' bachelor pad.

So over this time I haven't played a whole ton of poker. I've still fit in some sessions here and there, mostly Sundays when I've played tournaments and short random cash sessions when I have free time. When I've played cash the big PLO games have never been running so I've mostly stuck to various limits of the 7 and 8-game mixes on FTP and Stars. I still have a lot to learn but I enjoy playing them. I haven't tracked my results super carefully but I'm probably losing a little overall. I play such a variety of stakes and so few hands that I doubt the results would be very meaningful anyways at this point.

This week the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) begins on PokerStars. As always I'm very excited for this series and looking to play as many events as possible, which hopefully will be most of them. Getting to play big tournaments against weak players taking shots on some more obscure games is a lot of fun, and the value in the big NLHE events is huge as well. I came close to taking one down last fall losing to Tom Schneider heads-up for the 2-7 Single Draw NL championship. Hopefully I'll improve on that this year.

Mike

A Good Week for Watts

Thursday: Golf at Paiote Golf Club 30 mins down the I-95. Very nice course and I shot my best round of the summer.

Friday: Main Event Day 1A. Went pretty meh but whatever.

Saturday: Jay-Z concert at the Palms. It was just awesome. Afterwards we went to XS at Encore which is just a ridiculous nightclub and had a great time. Only bad thing about the day was I got way too drunk.

Sunday: Write-off due to Saturday night. Saved $5-10K I would have lost playing online tourneys.

Monday: Golfed Wolf Creek in Mesquite. 90 minute drive north on I-15. Golfing in the desert is really an amazing thing. Once you leave Vegas there is just nothing but desert with mountains in the background. It actually is a pretty amazing view even though it's all completely desolate. Occasionally there is an exit with a name like "Sun Valley" or "Heat Canyon" which is basically just a gas station and convenience, as running out of gas in the middle of the desert in 110 degree heat is simply not a good idea. In the case of Paiote on Thursday as you approach the course there is a sign signaling the beginning of the Indian reservation it's on and then you can see some green in the distance. It's kind of like an oasis except instead of being overjoyed at the site of water you're cursing the man-made pond you're going to dump a couple balls in on the 12th. As you approach you see that green obviously has to be a fairway, and in fact there is not one, not two, but three gorgeous golf courses laid out there in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Wolf Creek was a bit different as it's actually located in a "proper" town, Mesquite, NV. Here is a conversation we had with the bartender after our round that should give you an idea of what a legitimate town in the middle of the desert is like:

Us: Is there anywhere decent to get a bite to eat around here?
Her: Well, are you staying in town? Where are you staying?
Us: No, we're staying back in Vegas.
Her: Go back. Really. Just go back.

Once you arrive in Mesquite you drive up this huge hill to get to the golf course which is a sign of what's in store for you. Wolf Creek is widely considered one of the top 50 public courses in the US. It is also one of the top 3 hardest or something like that. Teeing off at 12:30 in 110 degree heat doesn't make your life easier, nor does the wind. Fortunately, growing up in Newfoundland I have some experience playing in 2-3 club wind, but even that and the fact that the wind was at our back for more holes than not didn't save me from shooting a rather ugly number. That being said, the course really was amazing. Elevated tee boxes on most holes make for some spectacular views (and occasionally spectacular drives!). As much as I was exhausted by the heat and getting my ass kicked by the course I still really enjoyed the round. Anyways this is not Watts' Golf Blog so moving along....

Tuesday: Busto main event. Oh well. Went to a sweet Italian restaurant. It was all mafia-style with like the little slot in the door that opens up when you knock on it and they ask how many, then you hear a buzz and another door opens into the dining room. It's called Capo's on Tropicana/Jones. Great food and cool atmosphere, there are little flash lights on your menu so you can read them since it's so dark in the dining room.

Wednesday: Bellagio Cup $3K event. 180 runners so first is $185K. I run sick hot all day just making hands and always getting paid off. The field is actually way softer than even the $1500 events at the Rio. There are maybe 20 good players in the entire field and the fish at Bellagio are just on another level of bad. I nearly finish the day as chip leader except for losing QQ vs ATs near the end of the day. That was basically the only relevant pot I lost all day though so I'm still above average with 15 or so left.

Thursday: First fun hand I play: Russian guy shoves in the SB I call 44 in the BB. He has A8ss. Flop A54ss. Turn 3h. River 2c. Chop it up.

Hand 2: 3k/6k a1k I think we're at final table at this point. Same Russian guy as before opens in EP to 16k. I have 180K next to act and flat call AQs. Short stack next to me crams 40K, Russian insta-reships when it gets back to him. I just don't think he's good enough to realize how insanely strong my range is there and decide my hand should be doing ok against their ranges and call. Russian has 99, shorty has AJdd. I flop a queen but AJdd rivers a flush. I still win the big side pot though.

Hand 3: 4k/8k a1k I have 170k after losing 55 vs 77. Serbian donk limps UTG. I raise to 28K with AA he calls. Flop J86, he checks I bet 42K he crams I call and beat his KJs.

Hand 4: 4k/8k a1k I have 340K. Open AQo in the HJ to 21K. Other Russian guy on my left, Dmitry, reraises to 65k and he covers me. They announce last hand before break. Now I have all sorts of good reasons to cram here. I have AQ only 45 bets deep in late position. He's russian. He might think I'm stealing light last hand before break, though I didn't even notice the clock and I'm not sure he did either. He's been playing so solid as have I, I just don't think he's messing around with me here. Also worth considering that he is the only other competent player at the table so I decide it's not likely enough that he's light here for it to be worth gambling and fold. He shows me AKo. Ding ding ding!

Hand 4: 6k/12k a2k I have a bit over 300K. I open AKo to 32k, Dmitry calls, donk in SB calls, Serb shoves for like 220K in BB. He's such a nit that I definitely am not fist pumping as much as I normally would be here but I obv reshove. The donk in the SB calls off his last 100k or so with 22 (actually) and Serb has JJ. I flop a king and win the pot to get to 740K and take the chip lead.

After this we decide to chop. We do a chip count deal and given stack sizes that is really good for me. I lock up 115K which is more than 2nd place and we play it out for the 25K WPT Championship seat and a really nice Swiss watch.

Hand 5: I raise in the SB to 36K with 55, Dmitry calls in the BB. Flop 933, I bet 48K he calls. Turn T I check and call 75k. River 9 I check and he bets 100K. I really felt like I had the best hand on the flop and unless he floated the flop and paired his ten I don't see that much else he plays this way that beats me. That being said the way he'd been playing I couldn't see him taking this line as a bluff either since he probably doesn't necessarily expect me to fold A-hi to such a small bet. The fact that I have slightly better than A-hi isn't all that relevant and I think I should have folded but I paid off and he had KTo.

Hand 6: Now Dmitry has a big chip lead but they put the watch on the table and it's really cool so I decide I need to bear down and win this. I bust one guy with AKs vs AQ and then 3-handed I bust the other guy:

8k/16k a2k Italian donk ships 145k on the button. I flat call A3o in the SB and Dmitry tanks in the BB. Oh crap he has a better hand than me but I think hes afraid that I'm trapping since I only called. He eventually folds AJ face up and Italian has 89o. Flop JT8. Oh well. Turn 3, River 3. When stuff like that starts happening no matter how rational you are you start thinking "This is just meant to be". At this point I look up and see that rapper "Nelly" has stopped by the Fontana lounge and is having a look at my final table.

We are now heads up roughly even in chips. At first we are playing conservative. Both of us are raising most buttons and neither of us is defending out of position much. When we do it's always by calling never 3-betting. I win the first pot of interest by turning top pair and getting two streets of value. Finally I break the 3-bet-less streak by repopping A5o which gets a fold.

Again not much happens for a bit until I open AKo to 40K on the button. He 3-bets for the first time to 121K, and I make it 301K. He folds and my image is getting is more aggressive even though I had it. Right after that he opens button, I 3-bet ATs and he folds.

Then shortly after that he opens button again to 38K, I make it 118K with 55. This has been standard bet sizing. He has roughly 800K so I'm definitely calling if he moves in as I expect him to do so pretty wide since I've 3-bet/4-bet him so many times recently. Of course I'm not thrilled if he shoves since it will usually be a coin flip but it's worth 3-betting here to keep pushing him around as it will induce him into overreacting and making a mistake at some point. He shoves though and I call, he has A7o. Flop A33 is not so good, but maybe it really was "meant to be" as 5 turns. River 7 and I ship a Bellagio Cup event for the 2nd consecutive summer.

Afterwards we ate at Cut, a steakhouse at Palazzo that was really good and then head to the PokerStars party at the club Rain at the palms. Stars really throws the best parties and it did not disappoint. Nelly played at the end of the night which was pretty cool.

Friday: Play Bellagio Cup $5K event. Make the money but short stacked heading into Day 2.

Saturday: Bust 12th shoving 15xBB with ATo over Eric Froelich's HJ open. He had KK and the back-to-back run was not "meant to be". I register for that day's $5K but bust early losing a big flip for most of my chips and then stationing off the rest with TT running into JJ in a pretty marginal way. I was going to go play some cash games in Bobby's Room but by the time it looked like I might get a seat in the 100/200 PLO game the game wasn't very good so I decided to just go bet a bunch if money on the UFC fights instead. I've made small bets on a bunch of fights before online and tend to do well, mostly just following the advice of people who are really good handicappers (as long as I agree with their picks, but if we like opposite sides I usually just stay away), but never made any big bets before. The lines at Bellagio were really good though and I won all 3 of my bets to make back the buy-in I lost in that day's tournament. Hooray! Also, the fights were really good so it was a fun night.

Sunday: Doing nothing, writing a blog at last.

Monday: Day 1A of Bellagio Cup 15K WPT main event. Going to begin the quest to defend my title from last summer.

Mike

A Blog Post!

Hey, I haven't written an update in a while though I figure my tweets should be doing a good enough job keeping you up to date. Obviously the series isn't quite going as well as I had hoped for the third straight year. I've played 17 events and cashed only 2, the $3K HORSE and $5K PLO. The PLO was my best shot by far but alas it wasn't meant to be. I'm planning to play basically everything from here on out except the $50K HORSE. BoostedJ has put up some results so I still have an outside chance of stealing the prop bet against Daniel if I can ship something or if Boosted crushes them in the HORSE. For those who don't know the bet is 20K to win 32K, myself and BoostedJ vs Daniel Negreanu and Eric Lindgren based on total WSOP player of the year points. So far, Daniel has 170, Eric 30, Boosted (Justin Smith) 92, and I have a whopping 15 to put the score at 200-107. A bracelet win is worth 100 though so there's a small glimmer of hope left for me.

OK so the rest of this blog will just be some interesting/important/hilarious hands I've played at the series lately. Enjoy!

$5K PLO Downfall: I had 300K with 27 left average 200K then these 3 hands happened:

3k/6k Open AKT9ss to 16K in HJ CO calls. He is a young Brazilian kid I've seen play aces super passive before and miss an easy river value bet with them. Flop T63hh I do not have hearts. I bet 28K he calls. Turn 2s check/check. River 6c I check he bets 32K I sigh and call since a million draws missed and I've seen hes not really capable of value betting thin. He has JJ and basically told me he thought he was bluffing or something. Great.

4k/8k I have 225K. Young guy open to 25K UTG with exactly 35K behind. Swede who plays a lot of hands quickly calls and I minraise to 42K with KK95ddd in the CO so that UTG's shove will reopen the betting. Except UTG flats with 18K behind as does swede. Flop A63hhh I do not have the Kh. They check to me and I bet 42K. UTG folds and Swede quickly calls. Turn blank check/check and I'm praying the board will pair since it's my only chance to maybe steal this pot. River 3! Swede leads out for most of my stack, I laugh at him for betting any hand there and fold.

Next hand I open KQJ9ds and get repopped by the brazilian with AAKT. Flop a Q stick the rest in and lose.

10K PLO: Fairly deep on day 2 I play this sick pot against Josh Arieh. 2k/4k a bad players limps in EP. Most of the times he has done this in the past he's been trapping with AA. I have 78K and limp button with 9764ss, SB folds Arieh checks in the BB. Flop 778r, Josh leads 9k, UTG makes it 21K. Already this is a pretty brutal spot. I feel like UTG is making a raise to see where he is at with AA a lot since he knows Josh can have a huge range here. And Josh can have all sorts of stuff so I cold call 21K. I feel like my cold call looks so strong it will freeze them up and I should be able to figure out where I stand, but there's an interesting argument for shoving hoping to fold out a better 7 as well. My hand has so much equity against something like AA7x anyways that getting called by that would not be so bad, but if I run into a boat I'm pretty dead. Josh quickly calls 12K more. Turn Q check/check and I check behind. River 4 and I am on a boat. Josh quickly bets 55K, UTG instantly folds and I tank as long as I have the entire series before folding. Unfortunately I busted not too long after this hand anyways getting it in pretty marginally on 854 with AK87 vs QQ96.

10K PLHE: Josh is at my starting table and I ask him what he had in that big pot. He told me he had KQQ7 so I made a good fold, though I could quite probably have won the pot by jamming the flop. Weird hand. Anyways here's my one bad beat story though it's kind of funny.

100/200 I have 33K. Nico Levi I believe it was, one of those french players anyways, opens to 500, I flat 99 in the CO, button calls, Sam Simon creator of The Simpsons calls in the BB. Flop K96hh, Nico bets 1050, I decide to slowplay which I don't normally do here obviously and call, Sam raises to 3500, Nico folds, I make it 11K, Sam sticks it in and I call. He has AK so I'm looking pretty ok. Turn 6 gives him 2 outs. Obviously you know what the river card is but the funny part was how it happened. I'm in the 8 seat and the dealer is right handed so when he deals the river I can't see it right away because his hand is in the way. There is a noticeable pause as he places it on the felt and he's staring at the card not moving his hand. It was like he had frozen up thinking "Oh my god, I have done something terrible". Sure enough, when he finally moved his hand the Ks was revealed and I lost most of my chips and busted on another cooler shortly after that.

The Series has still been a ton of fun overall though, definitely the most fun of my three summers here. I'm thinking I may have to just win the Bellagio Cup at the end again if I can't turn the Series around in these last 5 events or so.

Mike

$5K NL Report

Hey gang, I guess I'm due to write something here again and I played a couple hands that were kind of interesting today so I might as well write about them. I was up to a bit over 16K when this goofy hand happened:

50/100 Passive guy who has already doubled up with top set limps in EP, Roland de Wolfe who had just sat down makes it 700 in position and I flat call KK in the BB. I played with Roland for most of day 1 in the $10K mixed games so I'm pretty sure he thought I was very tight/solid. What I didn't realize is he was still in another tournament and just looking to gamble here. The limper calls and the flop is 532 with two diamonds. I lead 1400, limpers calls, Roland makes it 4900. I decide to call to see what the limper does first before committing to the pot. Limper instashoves, Roland quickly calls and I fold. Limper 55, Roland AKo, turn A so I don't feel like a complete donk for not 3-betting pre.

Next I get it in pre KK vs AA and win to get over 20K then I decide to do this. First some history: The players on my right is a donk. Important history:

Theo Tran opens to 250 he defends his BB. Flop 995r, he checks raises Theo, bet the blank turn, and chk/chk A river. He shows T5s Theo mucks. So instead of keeping the pot small with marginal hands he likes to checkraise and hope they go away and put himself in terrible spots in big pots if they don't.

75/150 UTG is a donk and limps with 2K behind. UTG+1 is the other guy I just talked about and he limps. I make it 750 with KQhh and both call. Flop T66r one heart. chk/chk I bet 1500, UTG folds. UTG+1 thinks for a bit. I'm not basically just staring at the felt like I always am and not paying attention to his body language that much, and I rarely assign much weight to my live reads anyways, but I'm fairly certain he basically looked like he was going to just fold, and then changed his mind and decided "nah fuck this kid he aint got it" and raised to 5k with 7k behind. I was pretty sure from a combination of the fact he wasn't loose enough pre that I would expect him to have a 6 here very often, his body language, and his line/bet-sizing that he did not have a big hand. On the one hand donks don't like folding pairs, but on the other hand donks also don't like risking their tournament lives so early without the goods. I moved him in and he called after about a minute with 77 and I bricked out. This is a play I basically never make but I really thought this was the perfect spot for it and I'm actually pretty happy with my decision to pull the trigger despite the results.

I still had 6k but gobbo owned me in back to back hands. First he bluffed me off an overpair when I thought he was trapping a big hand but he said he just had AQ. Then the very next hand I had AK and he trapped with AA. Allen Cunningham squeezed and I got tarped. Monday is 2500 NL 6-max. I think I will skip Sundays tomorrow. I may play the Party million though. It starts super early but is such a good tourney it's hard to pass up. I'm definitely not grinding all day though. 0 for 7 so far, and down a bunch at online cash too. But the summer is just getting started.

Mike

Quick Vegas Update

I don't have much super exciting to write about but I've got nothing else to do while I'm sweating Isaac Haxton to victory in the $40K tourney and I feel like I ought to post some kind of update. OK, so first my run in the $40K tourney. Here are a few interestingish hands:

Hand 1: 200/400 a50. Gavin Smith limps, someone else limps, Raszi completes the SB and I check 23dd in the BB. Flop Q54dd, Raszi leads 1600, I call, Gavin calls, other guy folds. Turn Kh, check, I check, Gavin bets 4K, Raszi makes it 14K, I cold call, and Gavin folds. River 4d Raszi checks and I check and win.

I've rarely felt like as big of a pussy after playing a hand of poker as I did here but I'm not sure I made any really clear mistakes. Probably I should have raised the flop in retrospect actually to try to drive out any bigger flush draws and possibly just win the pot right there, but calling is hardly a big mistake and I was actually kind of hoping for a raise behind so I could then bomb in a big reraise myself. Nothing like gambling for 300xBB in level one of a $40K buy-in with a draw. The turn check seems fine once I play the flop more conservatively and I think I have to coldcall the bet and raise since Gavin is super unlikely to ever reraise in that spot and I'm getting direct odds to call, plus excellent implied odds if I make my straight. The only really bad thing that can happen is if Raszi is semi-bluffing himself or Gavin calls behind with a better draw but I think the price is still good enough even taking those cases into consideration. I actually think the river is a pretty clear check as it would be extremely difficult to get called by worse and he can definitely check worse to me (either looking to checkraise with a full house hoping I'll bet my flush or checking a better flush that he's afraid could be beat some of the time).

So that and a few other pots got me off to a great start but I went pretty card dead later in the day and bled off chips. I should have picked a few more spots to try pick up some chips with resteals and such but really it just wasn't my day. On day 2 I played 3 hands in quick succession and busted:

Hand 2: 2500/500 a500 After having paid the blinds I'm down to around 80K and find 55 in the CO. I move in and pick up the blinds and antes.

Hand 3: Very next hand I open KTdd in the HJ to 12500. Bobby Suer calls on my left. He final tabled the WPT event in Tunica and I had happened to have watched that episode so I had a decent idea how he played. I felt pretty confident that he had a better hand than me and he probably should have reraised me, but he wasn't trapping with a monster or anything. Moorman then moves in from the BB for 42.5K more. If I move in and get Bobby to fold I'll be getting 2:1 against the BB's hand which is a good price, and I'm pretty sure Bobby will fold so I do that and all goes as planned except Moorman has ATo and I don't get there.

Hand 4: I have like 40K or something left and shove AQs very next hand. Shawn Buchanan reships and James Mackey (mig.com) thinks for a while and shoves over the top too. Shawn has QQ and mig has 66. I flop the nut flush draw but miss everything.

After that I went and got the keys to our summer house which is pretty sweet. I like it better than the place we had last year. I'm living with Aussies this year, so far only StevoL, Jay (Seabeast), and Joel Dodds are here, but Tony (Bond) is arriving tomorrow and the others are scheduled to show up in a week or two I think. I'll try to post pictures at some point. Probably I should take some before we make too big a mess.

Friday night I went out and got some degeneracy out of my system. I met up with Tom and Kyle (who I lived with last summer) to grab dinner and drinks and watch the Lakers game, then we went and put a beating on the nearest Texas Holdem Bonus table, and after that I ended up at the Rhino and got that out of my system too. Today I played online tourneys and some cash and got owned. Benyamine 6-outed me on the river for a 60K pot about 2 minutes after I woke up and I had no luck the rest of the day making any of that back. I had a couple deep runs in tournaments but I blew them. Here's one key hand I think I got wrong:

FTP 750K Gtd. 110/4000 players remain I have a slightly above average stack of ~120K or so iirc. Folds to the CO who opens to 8500ish and I flat call with AA in the BB. Obviously 3-betting here is fine but it's a good spot to flat call and trap and I think in this situation the call was the better play. Flop KJxdd, chk/chk. Turn 9, I bet ~13K and he makes it ~37K. I eventually shove but in retrospect I think I definitely should have folded. I really don't play my A-game on Sundays though and I shoved and lost to QT.

Anyways I'm already registered for the 1500 PLO on Monday and we're going golfing at 640am before that. I'm going to be exhausted all day but I think it will be worth it to get out there and play. I haven't played yet all summer so I"m going to really suck, but there's only one way to get back into it, and one of my bigger regrets the past couple summers is that I've hardly got out to play golf at all. If I last long in the PLO I'm going to be a mess but I guess that's what caffeine is for, even though I'm trying to minimize how much of that I drink this year.

That's all I've got for now, I should really try to get to sleep but I am lucky enough to have a small piece of Isaac's action so I'm going stay up and sweat him to the bracelet. Let's get the summer started off right for a change.

Mike

Tournament Poker for Dummies

OK so the most common complaint I get about this blog from friends who aren’t poker players is that they don’t know what the eff I’m talking about with all the slang and terminology. It would be far too difficult to explain everything, but I want to write down the absolute basics so you can at least easily follow my Twitter feed when I’m reporting my chip count from the tournaments I’m playing and have some idea what's going on.

Every tournament has a buy-in. This is the amount of money each player pays to enter the tournament. For their buy-in they each receive an equal amount of tournament chips. The amount of chips is arbitrary and need not be related to the buy-in in any way, but at the world series of poker (WSOP) this summer the number of starting chips will always be three times the buy-in. You then go play the tournament with those chips until eventually you lose all of them (or if you’re lucky until you win the tournament by winning all the chips in play). You are then paid by how many people are left when you bust out (lose all your chips). The tricky part is that only around the top 10% of finishers get paid at all (this % varies from tournament to tournament but 10% will be typical for the WSOP). For example, if a tournament had 1000 players then typically the first ~900 people to bust out would get nothing and just lose their buy-in. The top 10% will all get paid enough to at least cover their buy-in, but generally speaking unless you make the final table (the last 9 players) you will not make more than 2-10 times the buy-in. The really big prizes (relatively speaking) are typically reserved for the top 3 finishers.

Blinds/Antes: The blinds and antes are forced bets that players must make (with tournament chips of course) that force the action so there is some money in the pot at the beginning of the hand to play for. As the tournament progresses the blinds and antes increase so that the tournament can’t go on forever. Each time the blinds increase is called a level. Typically, each level in the WSOP will be an hour long, though in some special tournaments the levels will be 90 minutes or 2 hours long (the latter is the case in the main event). Depending on various factors such as how many chips we start with, how many players are in the event, and how long the levels are, most tournaments will last anywhere from 2-4 days (most events are 3 days long) though the main event with its 30K (30,000) starting chips, 6000+ players, and two hour long levels will take about 7 days of play just to reach the final table. At the WSOP it is typical to play until 2am or 3am before you get to bag up your chips and go home for some rest.

So, when I report “I have X amount of chips” what does that mean? One of the easiest ways to get a general idea how I’m doing is to compare my chip stack to the “average stack”. If I have more chips than the average I must be doing pretty well, though often times even if I am well below average the fact that I still have chips at all may mean I’m really not doing that badly if it’s late in the tournament. The average stack is given by:

Av. Stack = starting stack * players started / players left, or equivalently

Av. Stack = starting stack / % of the field left

So, for example, when half the field is left average stack is twice the starting stack. One other useful example to consider is when 10% of the field is left since that is when we “reach the money”. In this case average stack would be ten times starting stack. Therefore, whenever I have close to 10 times starting stack before we reach the money I should be a solid favourite to at least make the money. Similarly, later in the tournament another useful number to consider is the average final table stack, which you can calculate easily by putting “players left = 9” in the first formula (or occasionally players left = 8 or 6 for certain special tournaments).

Hopefully that will make following my progress this summer (via www.twitter.com/SirWatts and sirwatts.blogspot.com) easy and enjoyable. Wish me luck!

Mike

The Annual Pilgrimage

It's almost that time of year where professionals, amateurs, enthusiasts, and degenerates all converge on Las Vegas for the holy event that is the World Series of Poker. A month and a half of battling every day against 45 degree heat, hangovers, burn out, tables games, and of course your opponents, to try to win a bunch of loot and "a place in poker history", in the form a gaudy gold bracelet you'll never wear more than twice (unless you're John Phan). This year the "poker battle" begins early for me with the $40K 40th anniversary NL Holdem event this coming Thursday. After that I'll mostly be playing mixed games and golf as well as the bigger NLHE events in an attempt to keep my sanity throughout the entire the summer. As has been well-documented in the archives over at sirwatts.blogspot.com, the last two World Series must be considered failures for me as I have yet to final table a single event. Last year I did manage to keep my head on straight throughout the summer though and bink the Bellagio Cup at the end.

With my plan to play more of the different games this year a final table is a lot more likely as the average field size I will be playing against will be much smaller. I'm still far from a mixed games expert but I'm confident I'll have a big edge in almost every tournament I play. And most importantly it will be a lot more fun than playing Holdem day after day. I haven't done quite as much study and work on my game as I probably should have leading up to the series, but I put in a long session yesterday 4-tabling the 100/200 8-game mixed on Stars that went well. I definitely ran really good throughout but if I can even just hold my own in those games I should do very well against the weak fields at the Series. I also took a shot at a 400/800 8-game mix and luckboxed a solid win so my confidence is high.

In fact, I've basically run really hot in all my cash game play this week. I've played a bit in the 50/100 and 25/50 with antes PLO games on Full Tilt and put up good results. There has also been a shot or two at the 300/600 with ante game when a certain someone was tilting badly that went very well. As always whenever you go on a rush like that in PLO it has a lot more to do with the cards than anything about how you're playing, but I'm happy where my PLO game is at.

As for tournaments, I've put in a few mostly lighter sessions since I last wrote without any particular success. I had a couple small cashes in FTOPS events but nothing that covered my buy-ins. Hopefully my tournament run good is being saved up for the series this year, but more importantly I hope this is the most fun summer I have at the WSOP, win or lose. You'll be able to follow my progress throughout the summer on my Twitter feed located at http://twitter.com/SirWatts, and of course I will be blogging semi-regularly throughout.

Mike