I hate Sundays so much

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1047982

I lost more shortstacking and stuff too this week. As much as I knew a big downswing was coming it doesn't make it suck that much less. Oh well. I've moved out of Waterloo basically permanently. I'm in St. John's for a month and then Vegas for the World Series. Steve, Aaron, and I have a place booked from May 31 until the end of the Main Event. I'm planning to play a lot of events. After that I don't know where I'm going to live. Maybe Toronto or something, I'll see what options are available.

Mike

Nice Downswing

I'm not sure of the exact number because I don't know how timex finished the week, but I think I lost like a billion dollars or something this week. Actually, timex may have carried the team enough that I only lost like 50K. It's funny because my account is down a lot more than that due to shots at a juicy 500/1000 NL cap game where I owned only a small % of my own action. Basically, David Benyamine put a series of brutal suckouts on me Monday night and took like 60K off me, but only like 20K of that was my action. At the end of the night timex had to ship me 84K because a lot of the money I lost has his and he had a big winning night at 2/4.

Then Friday night I put up a nice -70K at 2/4. So timex will prboably owe me another big transfer next time we settle up unless I start running good again soon. Anyways, the regulars in those games seem to be adjusting better to us now so we'll probably have to be a little more particular about when we decide to play, we'd gotten a bit slack and just started playing all the time because we were running so good. I didn't play a lot of donkaments yesterday because I was in terrible shape after Saturday night.

We went to Fallsview in Niagara for mine/my buddy's birthday. The theme of the night was the Entourage episode where they go to Vegas. If you don't watch the show you prboably should. Anyways, the night was an overwhleming success and we partied like movie stars for a night. I obviously volunteered to take care of the high stakes blackjack scene, and luckboxed $1300. It was fun to be the drunk fish who doesn't really know what he's doing but simply can not lose for a night. So I bought a bottle of Dom P for the entourage at the club. While it definitely wasn't part of the plan, the night ended with us being involved in an altercation at the club and getting the boot, just like in the Enourage episode. Since no one was hurt or anything we were actually quite pleased with that result.

Here's a funny graph. Since half the downswing comes from 500/1000 where I had only a small % of the action I'm actually still up quite a bit over this period.




Mike

I Actually Meant it at the Time

Really, I wasn't planning to play 200/400 again any time soon. I'm usually a big bankroll nit. On the other hand we were up a couple buy-ins and the game seemed beatable. Worst case we lose back what we had won and gain a story to tell about that time we took a shot at the biggest game online. Oh, how we were foolish when we were young. So one night when the game looked relatively soft Mike and I agreed to the same 50/50 deal and took another shot. A funny thing happened though. We won again. This was already a huge amount of money we'd made, but instead of just being happy with that and quitting while we were ahead, we did what any good poker player would do. We got greedy.

It was clear we had an edge against most of the usual lineups, so we started taking shots whenever we saw the game running with a favourable lineup, and kept running hot. We went on a sick run Saturday afternoon grinding the game for several hours. The swings are huge, but I am likely the biggest luckbox in the history of shortstacking so we always ended up ahead. By the time I quit to go out for the evening we had made a completely ridiculous amount of money.

Sunday was another good day. We played the usual tournaments and sat 200/400 when the game was running and looked good. I continued to run insanely hot and just killed the game today. Mike ran really cold and lost a huge number. I don't think there's really much difference in the way we play so it really is mostly just random luck that I did so much better than him. Without giving exact numbers on how much we won or lost, we just settled up for the week and I sent him $60K to make us even, and he was in the black for the week before that. timex may be the luckiest person in the history of staking deals/trading action.

I also had a very good day at my normal games. I won several buy-ins playing 10/20 and a buy-in taking a shot at fullstacking 25/50 on Party. Even my tournaments went well as I won the $530 tournament on Party for $14K. Overall the week was just been completely insane. I don't even think it has really sunk in yet. Either that or poker has desensitized me to the value of money even more than I thought. Here's the biggest pot of the week. I forgot to sit out on my next blind after doubling up and then this happened:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1003105

How lucky.

Mike

March Graph

Someone asked so I'll post it, I still feel a bit uncomfortable about posting these though. On the one hand I know part of what makes this an interesting read is that I try not to hide anything and give an honest portrayal of the ups and downs of my poker career, and it wouldn't really work without going into actual numbers. On the other hand, well, exactly how much money I make is none of your damn business :-). I think I can still get the point accross without always being so specific. So I may have to be a little more vague about the exact numbers in the future (even if a lot of the data is available publicly elsewhere). Also, despite what it may seem like when I write posts like the one from Saturday, it's not generally something I like to brag about (except when talking to other poker playing friends it's become fairly standard to brag back and forth a bit). Anyways, enough rambling here's the graph already. March was another excellent month.


In other exciting news I finished 6th in the $1k tournament on Full Tilt tonight for $11K. I made a mistake on the final table bubble I'm kind of upset with myself about though. I'm just not closing these tournaments lately. Obviously there's a lot of luck involved, but that's why you need to make sure you're not making any mistakes near the end of these things, since even if you're playing perfectly the cards aren't going to fall your way a lot of the time.

Mike

Wow

timex's friend "IBluffUOut4" final tabled the two biggest tournaments on the internet yesterday. He finished 3/1962 for $30K in the Full Tilt 400K Guaranteed, and 5/6637 in the Stars Million for $42.6K. That has to be one of the sickest Sunday performances ever.

We Fly High

It was a Saturday like any other Saturday. I was just planning to play the usual Saturday 320s in the afternoon then watch Masters,Habs/Leafs, and UFC. Seemed like a nice relaxing day. So I start talking to Mike aka timex aka hit21hit on MSN, and next thing I know I'm playing 200/400 NL with Phil Ivey. As you can tell, he didn't really have to twist my arm much. (my comments in brackets)

Watts says:who nenad playing 200/400 with aba and ivey (Nenad Medic, used to go to UW also, now wins WPTs etc...)
Watts says:*whoa
timex says:o wow
timex says:btw, I bought a watch (Mike had a BBV thread about buying a balla watch recently)
Watts says:what one?
Watts says:the tag?
timex says:ya
Watts says:nice
timex says:pretty decent
timex says:they are having a sale at fairview mall, so I got 20% off
Watts says:sweet yo
Watts says:so just uner 2k?
timex says:so it was 1730 after tax
Watts says:not bad
Watts says:TAG doesn't have the same ring as timex or rolex tho
Watts says:thogh it could still have nice double meaning as a poker name (I'm not funny)
timex says:lol (pity laugh)
Watts says:lol doubling up first hand of 10/20 for the day (brag)
Watts says:soooo...
Watts says:do Ishortack 200/400 or not?
timex says:YES obv (as if I didn't know he'd immediately say yes)
Watts says:you want half my action?
timex says:I'll take 1/2 ur action if you tell me ur hands etc.
timex says:and only until say 240 or something, I need sleep after that
Watts says:k
Watts says:letus gogogogogo (BBV-ism)

The games weren't exactly what most people would call soft: Phil Ivey, sbrugby (probably the best HSNL player online, played in this season of High Stakes Poker), Nenad (serb) and Gus Hansen. Some other random shortstack guys that were terrible showed up too fortunately, I defintiely had an edge in this game, especially as I'm unknown to everyone except maybe Nenad. Mike talked me into playing both tables.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?975976- Things were going well when I played my first all-in pot as a *slight* favourite. Sorry forgot to clean up the railtards chat. That sucked.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?975985 - Phil Ivey owns me obviously.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?976046 - I got the best of Nenad in the hands we played today.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?976062 - I finished +13K, timex got half of course.

Timex then sat but I decided I'd had enough high stakes action for one day (for a long time prboably) and I didn't take any of his action. He obviously won a coinflip against Phil Ivey, proving his luckbox knows no bound.

Also, I won two more WSOP seats. First I luckboxed a $160 double shootout on Stars last night, and then I won the $650 satellite today (6 spots paid). Full TIlt just gave me cash for their seat when I told them I had to take the Stars seat, and I got 10K W$ and $1K cash for the second seat on Stars. Balllllin!

Mike

PS. no donkaments tomorrow for real this time because I'm spending Easter with family.

What a stupid Sunday

I lied in my last post, my basketball game was earlier than I thought so I got over to Steve's in time to play the evening tournaments. Things were going very well in several tournaments but then I lost two hands worth a combined 25-30K in equity I'd estimate. The first was against Ogre from 2+2 on the final table bubble of the Stars 100r. I was 2/10 and looking to improve on my 13K cash from last week.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?959055 - He thought I was picking on the BB who had been playing really tight (I actually had some old hands on him from somewhere that said he was fairly aggressive so Ogre's read was way off). I knew he was capable of shoving a fairly wide range there so I had to call even though getting into a big confrontation with another biggish stack there kind of sucks. 42o is just a terrible hand though I think he needs at least some showdown value for his push to be reasonable, oh well lol donkaments etc... I went on to bubble.

No worries I'll just win my WSOP seat in the 650 satellite I figured and it won't be such a bad day. I was deep in that with a bubble type stack, but I had finally picked up enough pots that I was in very good shape when some donkey went off his mind and tried not to make the WSOP. There are 24 left and 22 get seats. I'm like 17/24 when this ridonkulousness happened:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?959066 - I just shove in because it's the thing to do (folding might be ok but I don't have enough chips to fold in yet so pushing is better since the BB had shown no suicidal tendencies) and some guy decides to go on a kamakaze mission to ruin my life. If he had AA you might be able to have some discussion as to whether calling or folding is correct (he should still fold), but with AQ his call is just suicidal.

So at this point I was pretty pissed but I had a ton of chips in a $200 WSOP sat on Full Tilt that paid 3 seats so I decided not to endlife and go for vindication there. As luck would have it I was able to win a couple crucial big pots for a change and I got my WSOP seat after all! So all-in-all it turned out to be a pretty OK day I guess, though it could have been so much better. Tournaments really are stupid.

Mike

Poker Tournaments are Stupid

With that in mind, here are some NL cash hands. They're cool because they don't read I had 7xBB and shoved 74o and got called by AA. Actually tournaments are pretty OK too, but I suck at them or something. Also I'm not playing a lot of them again tomorrow because I have basketball (intramurals prboably just saved me 5K) so I figured I'd go for this instead of a Sunday report. First an interesting hand where I should have folded a set.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955755 - It was Full Tilt so I couldn't timebank the river and I had a set, which I'm not exactly in the habit of folding when the only reasonable hand I lose to is a bigger set. In retrospect I think the river is a clear fold as my line is usually a monster or air, and he's a strong enough player to basically never raise a worse hand for value (even KQ just calls my big river bet probably). There's also basically no way he can ever have a bluff here (especially since marginal hands can just call not raise because they beat the nothing part of my range and he almost always has some part of the board by the river). That leaves a lot of sets in his range even when you discount KK/QQ some.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955760 - Another turned set stacks me. I played this one correctly of course but I've been running hot enough that this hasn't happened to me too much.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955772 - I go for the bet/3-bet line with my big draw (I do the same with sets a lot too for balance) but can't get him off his overpair and brick my 12 outer. Pretty standard aggressive play.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955786 - Impossibly strong vs impossibly strong as Phil Laak says. He gets there on the river though. Fortunately this next hand happened shortly after against the same guy:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955791 - I guess maybe he thought I was steaming because that's a pretty sick calldown.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955798 - Kinda boring, sometimes I'm on the right side of the coolers. Folding to my 4-bet is not unreasonable, but I definitely might do this as a bluff sometimes so it's probably not a big mistake to just get it in.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955805 - I think this guy was tilting or something because he played another hand really badly in a big pot earlier in the session. Surprisingly he seemed to play pretty well in another session today so I'm not sure if he's good or not. Against some players I would fold the turn, but the way he was playing that session along with my general annoying aggressive image I knew I'd have an easy call if he pushed over my turn bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955810 - The preflop call is probably a small mistake in general, but I'm getting pretty good implied odds and felt he was very strong here, and also didn't seem like the type to ever get away from an overpair if I hit.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955812 - Another big pair vs big pair hand. I checked the turn going for the checkraise since I figured most draws usually bluff there and other worse hands will have a hard time calling a big bet. I'm not sure I like his turn bet, but I definitely can't fold since there's enough draws and various other things I beat that play it the same.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?955818 - Yay.

Anyways I always seem to post hands where someone gets stacked because they're the most fun, though often not the most educational. It's probably the only time I've ever picked fun over education.

Mike

Really bad news...

In two weeks Neteller will cease Canadian transfers to gambling sites.

http://www.neteller-group.com/press/en/127.htm

For people who've never used it, Neteller basically works like an online bank account. I can move large amounts of money to and from my Neteller account to the poker sites in just a few clicks. It's also attached to my real bank account so I can cash out from Neteller or move money back online very quickly also.

This came as a very big surprise to me, I really don't know where the pressure on them came from to take this decision. Being Canadian I've so far been somewhat shielded from the effects of all the bullshit going on with the UIGEA in the States, and it hasn't really affected me in a major way other than the games probably getting a bit tougher. But even that effect hasn't been particulaly noticable, especially since I've been running so well and on the biggest winning streak of my life.

This is going to make cashing out more of a hassle. As a MTT player I play accross a lot of sites so I can play all the biggest tournaments and I'm now going to have to keep money on all of them since I can't just reload from my neteller account whenever I have to. I'll probably have to keep a lot more money online than I wanted to now which means I can't invest as much. Also this will make it harder for Canadians to get money online to play poker which can only be a bad thing for the poker economy in general. Anyways I think online poker will be very profitable in the coming years, but this is another step in the wrong direction in the big picture.

Mike

A winning Sunday!!??

I won money at poker tournaments today. It was so fun I may switch my normal Sunday routine from losing money at poker tournaments. I had a few smallish cashes in the majors including the $1000 Stars million (despite my best efforts to bubble). That was enough for me to finish second in a $1000 sidebet based on performance in Sunday majors against some guys on PocketFives for $3900. I also finished second in the UB $530 for $13K. It was disappointing to lose heads up, I started out behind in chips but turned it around to build a chiplead as big as 3:1 before losing a few pots in a row that I may have misplayed somewhat to get back to even. Then I played a big pot preflop which I was hoping to avoid since I was having a lot of success stealing the small pots postflop. I had started raising more on the button and he had 3-bet me a few times earlier, so I figured another 3-bet was coming soon against one my raises whether he had a hand or not to keep me in line. The next hand I raised AJ on the button and he reraised just as I was expecting. I moved in but he called with AQ instantly, and while the AQJ flop was exciting it didn't help me at all. I didn't play much cash today. I lost a buy-in at 10/20 on Party when I misplayed a hand. Oh I just remembered I also final tabled the $200 tourney on Dise again, and finished 4th again. So overall it was a pretty good day.

Mike

Cash game heater continues

As does the tournament losing streak. I made the money in exactly zero tournaments today, which basically sucked. However, I also made 13K playing cash games before I got too many tournament windows going. I've never run anywhere close to this good for any kind of extended period before in my 2 and a half or so years playing poker. I've already easily surpassed my success from last year in 2 months. I know eventually this will have to stop and I'm trying to stay as level headed as possible because at these stakes when I eventually go on a losing streak, especially after getting used to winning big, it's going be really hard on me. I'm definitely enjoying the rush for now though. I guess I'll post some more of the biggest pots or something.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?917879 - Flop the monster draw and catch the perfect turn card. He decides to make the big semibluff checkraise since he picked up a flush draw.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?917884 - I played this kind of weird. The guy seemed bad but we hadn't been playing long so I really didn't know how bad. On the river I was just thinking how can he possibly call with a worse hand here in an unraised pot? It seemed quite possible he could have exactly KJ or a weird slowplayed set or something. Also, he might have a busted draw of some sort like J9 or a spade draw that could bluff so I went for a check planning to just call a reasonable sized bet. As it turns out against this guy I should have just bombed the river. When he made the ridiculously small river bet it seemed pretty unlikely he had me beat, along with my impression that he seemed bad was enough to convince me to just shove the rest in. My line is confusing and people always talk to themselves into calling anyways there because it looks like I just think his small bet is weak and I am making a move.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?917890 - A big hand I lost against the infamous stevesbets. A lot of people think this guy is a fish even though he plays nosebleed stakes because he makes some really bizarre plays. He used to play the 5K HU matches all the time and I heard of some people who would play him all the time thinking he's terrible, but I don't think anyone ever really beat him consistently. From what I saw today his preflop play is horrendous, but he's actually quite good postflop which really confuses people. Still, I can't see him beating the toughest online games if he doesn't clean up his preflop play some. He was killing this table though including this hand where he stacks me. I go ahead and squeeze preflop because stevesbets basically can have almost anything and the other guy also has a pretty huge range. I didn't have a good idea how he played yet so I decided to just check behind the flop. I really had no idea how loose he would call my reraise preflop at this point, and in general his call of my big reraise looks awfully scary. The turn was a nice card for me and he checked again. I figured I prboably have the best hand and made a smallish bet for value. When he just called I was pretty sure I had the best hand. The river is the 4 and he instashoved. His line basically just looks like a bluff now. It certainly doesn't look like he flopped a set or has AA/KK given the turn action, and obviously I didn't think he could have a 4 so I quickly called.

Mike

The only time I really get mad playing poker...

(Warning: actual strategy content)

...is when I make a mistake that ends up costing me. Bad beats don't really get to me, even when they happen in important situations. I can't ignore them completely of course and sometimes I react momentarily when they're particularly costly but after a few seconds that passes. When I donk up an important hand though it definitely can stay in my head for a while and at times this has effected my play negatively. Obviously there is a story to explain this post. I finally made the final table of a faily big tournament, the $100 rebuy on Stars. I was a short stack but I was starting to gain momentum with a series of blind steals moving me back towards a playable stack. Then this hand happened:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?900678

This is a really tricky hand because my table image is now pretty bad and my raise is unlikely to get a lot of respect, meaning I may get put to a really tough decision either preflop or on the flop if he elects to call. The problem is that the other options kind of suck too. Stacks are too big for a big overbet raise allin to be really appealing. My M is over 7 so going allin is probably marginally profitable at best assuming some reasonable calling range on his part (it may even be -cEV I haven't looked at the math closely). Compare this to making a normal raise but then calling an all-in: On the one hand he'll fold hands like K7 that he might reraise me with if he thinks he has some fold equity, but he'll also fold all his trash hands that he might bluff with if I make a normal raise thinking he can get me to fold. Raising and folding to his push also sucks because we're going to get bluffed a fair bit or at least fold when we had the pot odds to call. So basically none of the raising options is all that good.

The other option that I generally take a lot in this situation is the limp. The problem was that given our history I felt it was very likely he would raise me big if I tried to limp and then I'm basically in the same situation as above. Still, he may find the limp suspicious enough that he decides to take a flop with me so this may still have been the best option. Folding to avoid the confrontation is probably not as bad as it seems but it's definitely a weak play.

cEV vs $EV. cEV refers to the expected size of your chip stack where as $EV refers to the real money expected value of a decision based on the payout structure. The difference between the two is generally reserved for discussions of STT bubbles or satellites. Harrington tells us that in general it is fine to assume cEV=$EV, and for the most part I agree with this. However, to risk sounding like a fish worried about his "tournament life", there is a real difference between the two at a final table, and the value of moving up the payout ladder can not be ignored entirely. At some point I will have to actually do some of the math to find out in what types of situations this difference is actually relevant. In the situation in the hand with the 5 shortstacks all about even in chips it is intuitively obvious that we would really prefer to let the other guys be the first ones to get into big confrontations before we do. On the other hand we can't let ourselves get pushed around too much. Anyways I won't say anymore on this because I don't entirely understand if/when it's actually important, but it's relevant to my thought process in the hand.

OK so I decide to make a normal raise. Probably not the best option but hardly a big mistake. Like I said my table image was terrible and jcamby is a pretty strong player who can make adjustments. He moves in on me pretty quickly. Almost a little too quickly maybe but there's not enough there for me to put any real value in it. I'm getting 1.5:1 with a lousy QTo. The problem is that his range here could be huge. He'd almost certainly shove any ace, any pair, and any two paint. Still, PokerStove says calling is -cEV:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 38.005% 37.47% 00.54% 197590579 2845172.00 { QdTc }
Hand 1: 61.995% 61.46% 00.54% 324108709 2845172.00 { 22+, A2s+, KTs+, QJs, A2o+, KTo+, QJo }

However it's pretty close and as soon as we throw in some complete bluffs it's easy to see that will sway it to a call. I didn't know the exact odds obviously but I had a general idea that it's pretty unlikely I'm dominated and if there's any reasonable chance I could have the best hand then I should be calling. The next step was well, would he really move all-in with a hand that couldn't beat QT? Given that jcamby is a strong player who had almost certainly had enough of me taking his blinds I decided it was a definite possibility. So I concluded that calling was +cEV and I was about to go do that when this thought popped in my head: sure it might be very marginally +cEV, but is it +$EV? Almost near the end of my timebank now this swayed me back to folding. Obviously when he showed the hand I regretted the decision, but in retrospect it was a small mistake at worst. Probably the biggest mistake was opening for my standard raise without a clear plan what to do when reraised. It's not like I can stare him down and use that to sway my decision one way or the other. This got really long and it may turn out that Im just wrong about the cEV vs $EV thing mattering at all but something to think about anyways.

Mike

Boring Sunday

I only played the early tournaments today because I had a basketball game. I went fairly deep in the Stars Warmup but that was about it for tournaments. I did manage to make some money at cash games again though so it was a winning Sunday. Waterloo people took down a couple big tournaments today so I mostly played the role of cheerleader.

Mike

Quick Update

Just a quick update to keep with the routine of writing Sunday reports. Yesterday was a more typical Sunday, ie one where I lose a lot. I came very close to making a big final table though. Titan Poker ran a $540 250K guaranteed tournament yesterday that I finished 13th in ($2500). The structure was bad so everyone was shortstacked and one of my all-ins with garbage ran into a couple monsters. I also finished 13th on Mansion on Saturday and 4th in the Full Tilt $322 for $5600. So Saturday and Sunday probably about cancelled each other out.

Mike

February graph

I dunno what to say about this graph... I wasn't even sure if I wanted to post it because it's such a ridiculous shameless brag. Anyways... when you move up limits and run hotter than ever I guess this is what happens. The 45K rush at the end was all last week. Yeah, I know....


What's the secret you ask? Mostly this:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?869081

Sometimes this on consecutive hands shortstacking:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?869082
http://www.pokerhand.org/?869083

Sometimes you see a fish sitting down when you're shortstacking 25/50 so you get your underage friend to take half your action so you can take a shot. Then you obviously end up flipping coins for $9K with a different guy on your last lap after the fish left (I guess he coulda folded the flop but it was kinda clear the money was probably going in regardless after the preflop action).

http://www.pokerhand.org/?869093

Oh and try not to get outflopped and pay off the guy very often, who's been reraising you every hand so you put a jillion bets in preflop with AQo like your name is Grimstarr (2+2/BBV inside joke), but then still be up a buy-in at the table:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?869098

Finally a detailed strategy post!

Mike

A few random things

A couple small things I thought I'd make a post about. First, Mike's friend Will (yet another UW student owning at poker) won the Pokerstars tournament leader board last week. His picture is there when you load up the client and is basically the awesomest TLB winner picture ever (yes, that's actually him). In other news, Harrah's has announced a new WSOP - Europe in September of this year. The main event, a $10K Euro buy-in, is scheduled to begin on Sept. 10. Guess who turns 18 on Sept. 11? At like 2:00am too. If only he wasn't such a procrastinator. Seriously, I will never grow tired of needling him about this, it's so good. Finally, for season 3 of High Stakes Poker, the 2+2 community pledged to all chip in and donate at least $10K to Barry Greenstein's favourite charity if he said "lol donkaments" during one of the shows. That part of the show came up last night (and was pretty sweet), so the pledge drive has begun in this thread. I pitched in $250 to the cause, it doesn't look like there will be any trouble recahing the goal. Barry's post in the thread was pretty cool:

"Hi friends in BBV,One of the producers of HSP suggested that I post in the forums to get people to donate ahead of time or they might not include lol donkaments in the show. I told them, "The word of a gambler is good, and many of them said they would make a small donation, if they weren't broke at the time."Of course, if I were dealing with politicians or some other groups, I would want a contract, witnesses, and video.Thanks for proving me right, and I'm glad everyone has had fun with this. Please don't send me any money on Pokerstars or anywhere else. This isn't my charity. It's just the main one I support and trust. Barry"

Edit: Link to a news story.

Mike

I run really, really, good.

The first two months of 2007 have been incredible. Despite cutting back my hours playing (still not enough, I will really not be able to play much at all until the of April) I am on by the biggest rush of my poker career. In the past, whenever I moved up in limits I tended to get greeted by big losing streaks. Lately, every shot I've taken has been hugely successful. I've been killing the 25/50 games I'm shortstacking, I've had some tournament scores, and this week, filled with confidence, I decided to move up and take a shot at 10/20 NL with a full stack. Other than losing the biggest pot of my life today I've run insanely good and am up a substantial amount. Obviously this can't last but I think that as long as I exercise good game selection I'll be a winner in these games. I've even sat at 25/50 NL with a full stack a couple times when I noticed there was a really big fish in the game while shortstacking (though I had people take half my action). I showed my tournament player skills by getting all-in preflop and winning a $9000 coinflip.

What makes this even more ridiculous is that I've been close to some huge tournament scores the last two weekends but fell short. If I'd been able to close one of those... wow, isn't online poker supposed to be dying? I had probably my best Sunday ever today in terms of tournaments despite my inability to finish. First, I finished 3rd in the $200 on Paradise for $3K (the same as I did 2 weeks ago). I had a big stack in the 2:00 100r on Stars also but lost a big pot to ocrowe where I got caught making a move with a flush and gutshot straight draw on the turn, and then lost all-in preflop with K7 vs K5 for the chips I had left to finish 14th, instead of doubling back into contention.

I then had a huge stack in the $215 Mulligan on Full Tilt and was in good shape heading into a tough final table (w/ Scott Fischman and some other top online guys). Things were going well until I lost a big coinflip, and then lost more when a shortstack pushrf over my raise and I was committed to call with a dominated hand. With 5xBB left I picked up KK and shoved it in, only to get called by 22 and QQ! Several bricks rolled off and I was about to triple up and get my stack back when a deuce rolled off on the river. 5th paid $6600.

Finally, I had the chiplead in the $200 rebuy on Stars, which has a huuuuge prize pool, with 2 tables left. I basically treaded water until we were down to 10 players and I was in the bottom half but with a very playable stack of 100K at 3k/6k blinds. I was in the BB with A8o, and it folded to the SB who raised to 18K. He had me covered and given the final table bubble situation it seemed like an obvious spot for him to be raising basically any two cards, even though he had been playing fairly tight. So I made I think is basically a no-brainer all-in but he happened to have a big hand this time and his AK held. Overall I cashed for around 13K in tournaments on the day to show probably a 6Kish profit, but it's always somewhat frustrating when you're that close to the big money. Still, counting the cash game winnings I booked a huge win today.

When I started playing poker I never had any serious aspirations of playing for these kinds of stakes. I figured if I could get good enough to make $20 or $30 an hour it'd save me from ever having to worry about getting a crappy job and let me put some extra money in my pocket to do something fun from time to time. Maybe I could get lucky and satellite into the World Series one year. It'd be fun to play in one of these big tournaments on the TV. On the other hand I always thought I was exactly the type of person that could be really good at this game. I had a sharp analytical mind, I had always been good at games and math. It was always fairly easy for me to be detached from the value of the money I was betting at the table and just make the best decisions possible. There's always that bit of hesitation when you move up limits and start losing money faster then you ever have before, but I adjust pretty quickly. On the other hand away from the table I had good money management. I rarely ever tilt, and when I do it's not in a major way. I'm in very good control of my emotions (maybe too much so at times?). I protect my bankroll and don't play over my head (underplaying my bankroll may well have slowed my progress). I'm also really not interested in a lot of material things so almost all my poker money stayed in my bankroll. When I get out of school in the summer I'll probably find something fun to blow some money on though. I'm not sure what the point of this paragraph is, just some reflecting I guess. It may have something to do with the fact that I won and lost $9K and $10K pots this weekend respectively and my only real reaction after the momentary "holy crap dude you just lost a $10K pot" was to make sure I was happy with how I played the hand (I'm still not entirely sure, I'm not exactly used to playing with 440xBB effective stacks).

Anyways that's a lot of rambling, it's time to shut this down. Hopefully there was something insightful or interesting in there.

Mike

Sigh...

I had my most successful Sunday as far as tournaments are concerned in quite some time. It was also the most frustrating. My first deep finish was in the $530 tournament on Party. I survived into the money fighting with a shortstack the entire time, but finally busted on the final table bubble 11/103 for $867. Next up, the Mansion tournament and the Doyle's Room 54 rebuy. Both had 20K+ first prizes and I was top 5 in chips in both as we made the money (63 places). I quickly took two terrible beats on Doyle's Room and busted in the 30s for $400ish, and Mansion went badly also and I finished 21st for $600. However, as it was Sunday there was still a lot of poker to be played.

I went on a heater in the Stars 2nd chance and built a monster stack after winning a coinflip against another top 10 stack. I had a substantial chiplead in the tournament with around 150-200 people left. At the same time I rebounded from an awful start in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series $535 main event to build a 2nd place stack with 600 left. My AK beating AA all-in preflop was the highlight. As if these two weren't enough, I sucked out badly twice in the 100 rebuy on Stars and had a top 5 stack with 40 left. Unfortunately this is where things unravel. I lost a big pot to JohnnyBax in the 100r and busted 39th (36 paid). I treaded water in the 2nd chance for a while and finally found a spot to get my now short stack in with the best of it, but the river was not kind and I busted 30th for yet another whopping score of $760. Mike's friend Will ended up finishing 2nd for 25K in this tournament though, so congrats to him!

So that left me with just the biggest of all the Sunday tournaments. The Full Tilt main event exceeded its 1.5 million guaranteed prize pool with over 3200 players at $500 a head, and I still had a top 15 stack as we reached the money with 450 players left. Unfortunately I went incredibly card dead from this point on. I hung around stealing as many chips as possible to stay afloat, and I managed to survive for quite some time. One of my all-ins was eventually called, but as it turned out my QTs was in fine shape against 55 to get me back into contention. I flopped a Q but there was a 5 next to it, and another Sunday ended with a 70th place finish for $2400. Between playing tons of tournaments and having a bad day shortstacking the big cash games I still managed to lose lots of money despite my plethora of mediocre tournament cashes.

The shortstacking hasn't been going as well lately. People seem to be adjusting and I'm not running as well. I'm not ready to give up on it yet as my overall winrate is still extremely solid, but the huge swings may be more trouble than they're worth. It can also be a pretty boring grind at times playing mechanical preflop poker (without the excitement of going deep or playing a final table like in tournaments). Anyways that's enough ramblings for one post. Hopefully next Sunday will end better for me.

Mike

Heart mansion poker

Mansion is a relatively new site in the online poker racket. They're the same people that offered the free $1000 bet on the first week of the NFL season this year to try to draw people to their sportsbook (I was too stupid to do this despite hearing from several people that it was legit. Yes, the Steelers covered and everyone got drunk). They also sponsor the "Poker Dome" show that you might have seen on TV. Their latest poker promotion is their daily $100K guaranteed tournament with a $100 buy-in throughout the month of January and at least the first week of February. The overlay is enormous and the players are terrible. Also, earlier this week US players were cut-off from the site so the overlay got even more out of hand. Today there were 456 players, meaning they paid well over half the prize people out of their own pocket, and that's even ignoring that the rake is counted in the $100 buy-in. Anyways, I won the tournament today for $24K. The play at the end was so bad, people basically folded every hand hoping to move up the prize ladder. I got lucky a couple times to get some chips and then ran over the table. A brief scare heads up when I lost 3 consecutive races, but my luck turned just in time to win a coinflip which regained me the chiplead, and then hold all-in preflop with a dominating hand to end it. A few beers and UFC pay-per-view tonight to celebrate.

Mike

January Graph

+17K shortstacking 25/50 NL and +6K at 5/10NL (full buy-in). If only anything close to this was sustainable. I even managed to not lose too much of this back playing tournaments.

Mike