WCOOP #17: $1050 Limit Holdem

Yeah I ended up playing this but I sold half my action so I'd only lose half as much when I didn't make the money. I had a big stack a few hours in but I missed a big draw and had an opponent get there vs my overpair to bring me back a bit. Then, as usual, I got outplayed in a huge pot: Pwned again

Yes, he did peel the flop with no pair no draw. This may seem like a bad thing, but in reality, by the dueness theory, this is the best thing that could have happened. Now I'm reeeeeally due for a big score in the main event tomorrow. Hooray!

Mike

This is not good

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=law&Number=7482737&page=0&fpart=1

It remains to be seen how bad this will actually be for online poker, but it's certainly not good. It doesn't affect me directly in Canada, but it probably means less fish and therefore less money for me. I don't understand the exact effect this will have yet, but I'm definitely not happy about it.

Mike

WCOOP #14: $530 Stud 8

Another bubble.... I never had a lot of chips at any point in this thing but I hung on and scooped a few pots when I had to to stay around. Several of the players at my table were awful but I didn't really get the cards to take advantage of them often enough. I made a couple mistakes that were a bit costly but I think I played pretty well overall. My bustout hand was when my 345 failed to get anywhere against my opponent's aces, and I finished 88th. 72 spots paid. The good news is that by the standard theory of dueness I figure to have a big Sunday.

Mike

WCOOP #13: $320 6-handed PL Holdem

Yet another poor showing for me today. I busted Isabelle Mercier early on to double up but after that I went almost completely card dead and anted back down to where I started over the next hour or 2. I busted out when I just called a raise from UTG with AA hoping to trap and the BB also called. The flop was checked to me and I bet, and the BB checkraised me all-in. I didn't have that many chips so it was an obvious call but I ran into a set of 4s. That's obviously one of the risks involved with slowplaying the hand preflop but on my stack it was worth taking some chances to try to win a big pot and get back in contention. Tomorrow is the $530 Stud Hi/Lo which I'm looking forward to and then the only other event I'm planning to play is the main event on Sunday. Hopefully I'll make a run in one of those, maybe I'm just saving all my luck for Sunday.

Mike

WCOOP #12: $320 PLO8

I busted out near the midpoint of the field but I was happy with my play. Three of my biggest hand involved pocket aces flopping top set. The first one I won a nice pot when no low draws got there and then 2nd I just folded on the flop because I was only playing for half the pot when 3 low cards flopped! The 3rd was my bustout hand which I'll talk about a bit.

Busto hand

I should say up front that I'm not a PLO8 expert but I think I play a little better than most people. So I start with AAQ9 with one suited ace. The first thing to notice is that my hand has no low potential. If the stacks were a little bit shallower I'd go ahead and pot it right here hoping that everyone folds or at least to get it heads up where I'm prboably 50/50 against a lot of hands. However, here I have enough chips that if I get called my hand is going to be really hard to play after the flop. Instead I opt to just limp along and hope to catch a big flop.

At first the flop looks really good for my hand, I have top set after all! However there are a few problems. First, there is a low draw and a flush draw out there, and also anyone with a 24/25/or 45 low draw has a gutshot as well. If they have 245 they have a little wrap straight draw since any 2,4, or 5 give them a wheel. So if we're up against some combination of these draws we may not actually been in that great shape after all. I decide to wait for a safe turn card before committing to the pot. Any thing that doesn't complete a low or the flush and I will jam the pot on the turn. If a heart comes on the turn I can fold and if the low draw is completed and he bets big I may also have to fold (especially if it's a 2,4, or 5).

So I get a safe turn card and he pots it. Now it looks like he either has a smaller set or a huge draw. With only one card to come I figure to be well ahead unless he has the biggest of drawing hands (if he happened to have both flush draws and the wrap wheel draw I'd still be an underdog!), but a smaller set seems far more likely, which would be a great matchup for me. So I go ahead and re-pot all-in and he calls. It turns out not only did he turn a smaller set, he also had a flush draw, low draw, and gutshot wheel draw. I was actually only a 60:40 favourite going to the river, a nice edge but not as big as I'd have liked. Of course he hits on the river and that's it for me. It's worth noting that on the flop he was a 51:49 favourite, so by waiting for the turn I was able to get all my money in when I had a real edge (and I could save some money if he outdrew me). In split pot games you need to be careful when you're only going for a high hand.

Mike

This is Getting Kind of Stupid

Today the onslaught of terrible beats continued as I passed the 30K mark. I didn't cash in a single tournament, though at least I won at cash games for once. I lost a massive pot in the $1000 WCOOP event that would have given me a top 10 stack at least. Supposedly the guy who busted me was TJ Cloutier, or at least it's supposed to be his account. He was playing like a pretty big fish so I have no idea if it was actually him, but it very well could be. I'd reraised him a few hands earlier when he raised in late position and I guess he wasn't going to let me do it again, even though the situation is completely different when it happens in early position. Pwned

Similar stuff happened in most of the other tournaments. In particular I lost another really big pot on Full Tilt when my AA got all-in against QQ and he spiked a Q on the river. Anyways that's enough talk about bad beats they're really not very interesting. Amazingly I'm not overly upset about this. I guess it's proboably because even after losing the 30K I'm still way ahead of where I was 4 months ago. Like 6 months ago my bankroll was barely 5 figures and now I've lost 3 times that in a couple months and I'm ok. When I zoom out and look at the big picture this year is still going very well overall and I guess knowing that, along with the fact that I know I'm still playing well and it's just a matter of time before I start winning, are the things I focus on to know that this is going to be fine eventually. Though I still can't help but feel like it'd sure be nice if eventually happened sooner than later. Oh well, I'm going to get some sleep. Not playing tomorrow but I'm planning to play the WCOOP events on tues/wed/thurs. I'll probably buy into a couple with frequent player points just to help ease the swing a bit.

Mike

WCOOP #7 & 8: 215 HORSE and 530 PL Holdem

I got off to a poor start in both events, but then rebounded a bit though I never got back to average stack in either. I had my stack just over 6000 in the pot limit tourney when I picked up AK and raised to 900 (150/300 blinds) for the 3rd consecutive hand. This time I got reraised to 2700 and given how active I'd been this didn't seem like a time to be folding AK. So that leaves calling or pushing. If I call I would probably push any flop hoping to get him to fold the same hand if I missed. The problem is if I do flop an A or K he might get away from a smaller pair. I decided instead to just go ahead and get it all-in preflop since I figured he could have AQ. Of course he actually had the aces and I went busto. In the horsament I fought up to 8K after a good 2nd round through all the games. Around now Steve was coming to pick me up to watch the UFC fight on PPV at Aaron's, so Aaron covered for me for a few minutes. He had my stack up to 12K by the end of limit holdem but I guess he busted me in the O8 before I got over there. Doh. Today is a $1000 NL tourney. It'd be a good time to make my first cash of the WCOOP. After Vegas my ROI in $1000 tournaments is around 800%, so I'm going in very confident for this one :P. Wish me luck!

Mike

WCOOP #6: 215 rebuy

Again today looked promising for a while. I picked up a few chips in the rebuy period at a tight table and finished the rebuy period with around 9500 which was a slightly above average, in for the "minimum" ($615). I flopped a set in the 2nd hour to get to 15K and was able to gradually build my stack to a peak of around 28K. But then some guy decided to make a bunch of flushes against me and take all my chips. What a jerk. My play on hand 1 looks weird but I think it's better than most of the other more obvious options. (Edit: The replies to my post of that hand are so bad. The last one comparing it to having KK when an A flops is my favourite, since the comparison makes no sense to begin with and his advice for that situation is also wrong.)

Hand 0

Hand 1

Hand 2

I won't be playing the limit tournament tomorrow but I plan to play both events Saturday, and Sunday will be the usual deal.

Mike

WCOOP #4: $215 Heads-up Matches

Won my first 2 matches easily and got paired against the biggest donkey ever in the 3rd round. All I had to do was make a couple hands and let him call off all his chips. I was ahead the whole match and then when blinds got bigger I lost every pot and he had a bazillion overpairs so I cried and stuff. Poker sucks.

Mike

Bad day for all

Sunday was not kind to the boys from Waterloo as none of us made a run at anything substantial. I donked off a 60K stack before the money in the Party million trying to make some insane hero call and took 2 bad beats in my first WCOOP event on Stars to fall just short of the money there as well. I hung on for a few hours after the 1st and finally got it in with JJ vs 99 in a pot that would have given me a somehwat playable stack again, but I got outflopped. I also lost a fairly big pot on Full Tilt when my overpair lost all-in preflop to another set on the flop in their $150 tournament. I did cash in the 100 rebuy on Paradise but busted with 2 tables left again. That was my only holdem cash today, though I finished 2nd in a $100 PLO8 tournament on Stars. There were only 90 runners so it just paid $1800 though. Go figure. I also lost $2200 at 5/10 NL to finish down like 3K on the day.

I kind of don't like talking about big downswings on here while they're happening because I don't want any of you to get too worried about me or anything for no reason. They're just part of the game that I've learned to accept and deal with fairly well, but to "normal people" the thought of losing that much money probably seems more than a little crazy. I also know that enough of the data is out there anyways if people really want to find out they can, and in general I try to be honest about everything in here. I'm not trying to make it look like I always win or something ridiculous like that. Anyways, I'm on a $20K downswing and it kinda sucks.

A lot of that has been at the cash games recently now that my hot streak has turned around. I know I'm a solid winning player in my tournaments and I'm just running bad right now so that's no concern, but I don't have as much experience in the no-limit cash games so I'll have to keep an eye on that and make sure there's no major leaks in my game. I've definitely been running a little bad in those too but there's so many more tough decisions there that I'm less sure about whereas most of my play in tournaments is a lot more automatic. Anyways, the plan is still to play a lot of WCOOP events and then reevaluate how my bankroll stands after that. I was fairly overrolled to start though so I won't necessarily have to move down in limits, especially with the money I won in Vegas left to back me up if I need it.

Finally, I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone that played and/or helped run the Ryder Cup team tournament on Saturday. It was a lot of fun once again. Things really didn't go our way this time around as against all odds we actually failed to repeat, but we made a nice comeback in the final round to sneak into 3rd and make a little money that at least covered a few beers. My next WCOOP event will be the $215 heads-up on Tuesday. I'll try to post at least a brief report after each of my WCOOP events saying how they went, though there probably won't always be much interesting stuff to talk about. Night,

Mike

Frustrating Weekend

I played a bit this weekend and made some money for a change, but it was a lot less than I was hoping for. On Saturday I played a few tournaments in the afternoon. I took a bad beat in the $300 tournament on Party to finish a disappointing 14th for like $900. Coming close to the big money but falling short became the story of the weekend. I did manage to win a $100 tournament on Ultimate Bet a couple hours later, but it only had 92 people so it paid only $2850. It was a win though so I was feeling confident coming into today. From the begining today things were just going right. I was hitting flops, and catching lucky cards all over the place. I don't think I've ever run as good as I did for a 2 hour period this afternoon. I hit a completely insane number of 2 outers coming back from 1500 chips to 40K in the $200 on Ultimate bet and 1000 chips to 16K in the $100 rebuy on Paradise. But once again, I went cold at the most important times.

I had big stacks deep in the $200 buy-ins on UB, Dise, and Full Tilt, but I just couldn't make a final table. First I busted 35/893 on UB, then 27/812 on Dise. I took a bad beat on FT when my AQ lost to A5 all-in preflop but battled back to a respectable stack before losing a coinflip, 22 losing to AK to bust 25/1217. Between the three I cashed for a total of $2600, which at least was enough to put me slightly ahead on the day. You really have to make final tables to win any real money at these things though.

Anyways, no more poker until next weekend when the WCOOP starts and I'm also playing in a friendly team tournament on Saturday with some good people from pokerforum.ca. I'm a member of the defending champs, Team Waterloo, and it's hard to imagine us not repeating :P. OK now that I got my trash talking in I'm heading to bed. Peace,

Mike

Back after a short break

I didn't play much poker at all in the week I was home. I was only there for a week so I tried to spend as much of that time as I could with friends and family. Then when I got back I had to move into my new place for the fall. I played some this week though once I got settled in and the results have continued to be fairly poor. I haven't had any good scores in a while though my cash games results have still been very good to help balance things a little. Today I did the usual Sunday thing and it was looking very promising for a while before I took a few tough beats. My TPTK got outdrawn by a donkey with a flush draw fairly deep in the Stars million and I lost a fairly big pot when my 2 pair got outdrawn on the river in the 2nd chance. I was chipleader in the $200 tournament on Full Tilt early on but couldn't find hands to continue building my stack and ended up busting just short of the money. Steve and Mike both made final tables though in $200 buy-ins. Mike finished 6th on Paradise for $6K, and Steve finished 2nd on UB for a nice $26K.

The plan from here is to not play too much for the next couple weeks until the WCOOP where I'm planning to play all of the events that are in games I know how to play. Should that go poorly I will officially be on a nice downswing, but that's poker. I mentioned I had some poker goals in my last post and I guess I'll write them here. I don't know how many of these I'll actually be able to accomplish but you need something to aim for and keep you motivated.

1. Final table a WCOOP event.
2. Final table then make a big score in a "major" Sunday tournament (I have one final table in the $200 on Paradise, 7th for about 5K).
3. Satellite into WPT Niagara (the first ever WPT event in Canada).
4. Satellite into the Pokerstars WPT event in the Bahamas in January.
5. Sustain a good winrate at $1000 NL cash games.

Obviously all I can actually control is playing my best all the time and continuing to try to improve as a player, but with a little luck hopefully a few of the above will follow.

Mike