Well I busted the 10K PLHE pretty quickly. I screwed up this hand:
I have 19.3K of 20K starting stack at 200/400. Eric Assadourian (I think?) raises UTG+1 8-handed to 1100, Will Durkee pots it next to act to 3900. I find QQ in the CO. My first thought is just to fold, but then I ask Will how much he has behind and it's only 7K more, which makes me think his range can be slightly wider. Something about the way he raised made me think he didn't have KK/AA but Im obviously a live poker fish so I shouldn't put much faith in that. Anyways I talk myself into reraising, Eric reshoves, Will folds and I call. Eric has AA and Will had to fold AK after putting in over a 3rd of his stack. I don't win and am crippled. Definitely a fold is right there, and coldcalling is probably also better than reraising. I manage to run my stack up to 2800 then find QQ UTG at a new table. I pot it and get it in on the 987 flop and lose to TT. Oops.
I went to register for the huge $1500 event this weekend but they were only letting people register for Sunday at the time since too many people are registered for the Saturday starting day. I decided not to bother and just play online this weekend. The Ongame grand tournament is running this weekend and I can still play it from here so in addition to the usual other good tournaments there's just way more value online and I'm not all that crazy about playing live again right away. Maybe I'll decide to play the starting day on Sunday if I don't make day 2 of the Ongame tourney but I doubt it. On the plus side it turns out my wire transfer had arrived but I sent it to the wrong place. I was able to get that sorted out though so I have lots of money in my account at the casino to lose in subsequent tournaments now. Hooray!
Mike
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
WSOP 2008 Preview
Hey gang, welcome back. I arrived in Vegas today and got to our house for the summer with no problems. I'm living with a bunch of different people this year: Serge (Adanthar), Tony (Bond), Celina (Bondgirl), Tom (LearnedFromTV), Nath, and Kyle (grafyx). We have a pretty nice house rented off the strip. Whoever designed the layout for this thing really butchered it, the main area of the house is one huge open room which is kind of weird. I usually like a nice open space but they took it too far. Also, the big TV kind of sucks it's a bit flickery. Nonetheless there is lots of space and it should have everything we really need including an outdoor pool. Yes, the pool really is a necessity.
I went down to the Rio today to check out the new set up and see if my money had arrived. I had read a few reports that they had made a lot of improvements this year and it looks like that's definitely the case. They have a separate room dedicated to satellites with its own cage, as well as a separate room for tournament registration which should hopefully help eliminate much of the congestion that was present last year. There's also a few more food options, most interesting to me is the new Sushi & Noodles place. It was open today so I tried it out and was pretty happy with it. It's All-You-Can-Eat, just noodles is ~$20ish and just sushi is ~$29. For a combination of both menus it's $38. I just had the sushi and was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the fish. It's certainly nothing amazing by any means, but it was pretty good and definitely exceeded my expectations for a small little place like it is, so I'd definitely recommend it to people looking for a relatively quick delicious meal near the poker room (it may not be quite so quick during the Series when you're not the only person in the room, but the simple all you can eat format is clearly designed to make your options simple and get people in-and-out). They have all the usual basic sushi options; salmon, tuna, shrimp, crab, eel, mackerel, yellowtail, nigiri and sashimi, as well as various rolls.
So while that was very good, it was the high point of my trip to the Rio as once again my wire transfer had not yet arrived. You'd think I'd have learned from last year, and I intended to send it much earlier this year, but I also had to send a lot more this year and it took me a little extra time ot get that money wired to my bank account after returning from Europe as I was waiting to get my MoneyBookers account set up properly. So I've repeated my mistake and will probably end up skipping the 10K PLHE event tomorrow, which isn't the end of the world since it figures to be a relatively tough event, though I would have liked to play. I'm still definitely planning to play the $1500 event on Saturday which will be no problem to borrow money for if need be. Oh yeah if by any chance someone in Vegas reads this and has 10K they can lend me for tomorrow's event that would be awesome, please get a hold of me. After that I'll basically be playing the NLHE events almost every day plus some PLO, and who knows what else. I do plan to skip some of the $1500 NLHE events later in the series though to try to avoid the burnout that hit me by the of the series last year. So wish me luck, hopefully I can do better than last year and come home with some jewelry and a bunch of money.
Edit: Looks like I found money and will be playing tomorrow. GL me!
Mike
I went down to the Rio today to check out the new set up and see if my money had arrived. I had read a few reports that they had made a lot of improvements this year and it looks like that's definitely the case. They have a separate room dedicated to satellites with its own cage, as well as a separate room for tournament registration which should hopefully help eliminate much of the congestion that was present last year. There's also a few more food options, most interesting to me is the new Sushi & Noodles place. It was open today so I tried it out and was pretty happy with it. It's All-You-Can-Eat, just noodles is ~$20ish and just sushi is ~$29. For a combination of both menus it's $38. I just had the sushi and was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the fish. It's certainly nothing amazing by any means, but it was pretty good and definitely exceeded my expectations for a small little place like it is, so I'd definitely recommend it to people looking for a relatively quick delicious meal near the poker room (it may not be quite so quick during the Series when you're not the only person in the room, but the simple all you can eat format is clearly designed to make your options simple and get people in-and-out). They have all the usual basic sushi options; salmon, tuna, shrimp, crab, eel, mackerel, yellowtail, nigiri and sashimi, as well as various rolls.
So while that was very good, it was the high point of my trip to the Rio as once again my wire transfer had not yet arrived. You'd think I'd have learned from last year, and I intended to send it much earlier this year, but I also had to send a lot more this year and it took me a little extra time ot get that money wired to my bank account after returning from Europe as I was waiting to get my MoneyBookers account set up properly. So I've repeated my mistake and will probably end up skipping the 10K PLHE event tomorrow, which isn't the end of the world since it figures to be a relatively tough event, though I would have liked to play. I'm still definitely planning to play the $1500 event on Saturday which will be no problem to borrow money for if need be. Oh yeah if by any chance someone in Vegas reads this and has 10K they can lend me for tomorrow's event that would be awesome, please get a hold of me. After that I'll basically be playing the NLHE events almost every day plus some PLO, and who knows what else. I do plan to skip some of the $1500 NLHE events later in the series though to try to avoid the burnout that hit me by the of the series last year. So wish me luck, hopefully I can do better than last year and come home with some jewelry and a bunch of money.
Edit: Looks like I found money and will be playing tomorrow. GL me!
Mike
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Last Week before WSOP!
Well let's see where was I last time I posted. Oh yes FTOPS was running. I ended up staying home last weekend and losing lots of money playing in those events. I did however finish 4th in the Party 300 on Saturday for ~$4800 to get me even for that day, but I had no luck on Sunday either. This week I played a bit as well. My only tournament success was finishing 7th in the AP $1K for $3500 when I came into the final table with a big stack then did nothing for a while before losing a big flip since everyone had absurdly short stacks. Today I finished 5th in the FTP $100r for $5K when I took the chiplead into the final table but lost JJ vs 69s aipf to Zpaceman. It was pretty awesome. That's about all I can recall wrt tournaments, other than to say that ECOOP II (Euro Champ of Online Poker tourney series) is running this week so I'm going to play a bunch of those events on the iPoker network before I move to Vegas for a month and a half and can no longer play on most of the sites that I actually make money on during that period.
Paragraph 2 of this post will be dedicated to some more Omahizzle. I've actually been playing a pretty decent number of hands for me lately when I don't have too many tournaments running to try to get a lot of the necessary experience under my belt to improve at PLO and gain confidence in my game. I definitely want to have a 2nd game I can play with confidence during the WSOP so I can mix up my schedule a little and hopefully help keep me fresh from the grind of just playing NL Holdem tournaments everyday. I've now put in 10,000 hands at 2/4 - 5/10 PLO and the results have easily exceeded my expectation. I've almost certainly been running super hot over this period but nonetheless I'm very confident I have a substantial edge at these limits, especially on the European sites where a lot of the play is just awful. The games on FTP and Stars definitely seem tougher but I'm pretty sure I'd be a winner in those as well long run, just not for nearly as much. Anyways here is a graph of my results for my first 10K hands of mid-stakes PLO. As you can see there is a lot of variance in Omaha so I put a lot more faith in the fact that I constantly see my opponents making big mistakes to believe I'm a winning player than in the fact that I've won over this period. Averaging 10 ptBB over these hands is pretty solid though :D.
Anyways given how bad play typically is in Omaha tournaments I definitely feel I'd be +EV in pretty much any Omaha tournament at the WSOP so I will look to add some extra PLO events to my schedule. I'm going to end this post here and save room to write a big WSOP pregame show post before I leave this week. I'm only playing a few early tournaments tomorrow again, but with ECOOP running I don't imagine I'll be taking much of a break from poker or anything like that before WSOP.
Mike
Paragraph 2 of this post will be dedicated to some more Omahizzle. I've actually been playing a pretty decent number of hands for me lately when I don't have too many tournaments running to try to get a lot of the necessary experience under my belt to improve at PLO and gain confidence in my game. I definitely want to have a 2nd game I can play with confidence during the WSOP so I can mix up my schedule a little and hopefully help keep me fresh from the grind of just playing NL Holdem tournaments everyday. I've now put in 10,000 hands at 2/4 - 5/10 PLO and the results have easily exceeded my expectation. I've almost certainly been running super hot over this period but nonetheless I'm very confident I have a substantial edge at these limits, especially on the European sites where a lot of the play is just awful. The games on FTP and Stars definitely seem tougher but I'm pretty sure I'd be a winner in those as well long run, just not for nearly as much. Anyways here is a graph of my results for my first 10K hands of mid-stakes PLO. As you can see there is a lot of variance in Omaha so I put a lot more faith in the fact that I constantly see my opponents making big mistakes to believe I'm a winning player than in the fact that I've won over this period. Averaging 10 ptBB over these hands is pretty solid though :D.
Anyways given how bad play typically is in Omaha tournaments I definitely feel I'd be +EV in pretty much any Omaha tournament at the WSOP so I will look to add some extra PLO events to my schedule. I'm going to end this post here and save room to write a big WSOP pregame show post before I leave this week. I'm only playing a few early tournaments tomorrow again, but with ECOOP running I don't imagine I'll be taking much of a break from poker or anything like that before WSOP.
Mike
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
There might be hope for me yet...
Hey hey! I've rebounded pretty nicely the last couple days. Let's take a look at the list of things that were going wrong in my last entry. First, I finally won a step 6 to the WSOP. I ended up playing my friend ch0ppy HU and of course the first time I play a good player I manage to luckbox the win. So I got my first WSOP seat at last. Next, I had a nice tournament score. I just finished 2nd in the Stars 100+rebuys for $24K. I got heads-up behind 3:1 in chips and started to mount a comeback before blowing up. I made two really stupid spazzy plays heads-up trying some new things at bad times. Once again on my bustout hand I ignored obvious bet sizing tells and made a stupid bluff when the guy hadn't played back at me in any way for probably 20 minutes. If I just folded like I always used to and kept grinding away at him there's a decent chance I may have made the comeback. I also made a hero call earlier in the HU that had no chance of being right because I just want to be a fucking hero alright. I dunno, I guess that's just something I'll have to work on, maybe play some HU sit n gos or some bs. Gotta learn not to listen to that stupid game theory voice that says "Dude, folding here is so exploitable and folding is no fun anyways!" and listen to the common sense voice of years of me playing poker experience that says "Watts, listen to me. I know it's really exploitable to fold, but he's not bluffing. Here are several good reasons why. He's going to show you the nuts and you're going to feel like an idiot. Again." Just read that and tell me which voice sounds like he knows what he's talking about, I mean seriously, which one would you trust?
Alright, moving on, I also kicked ass at Omaha in the last 2 days. I still haven't played anything resembling a decent sample size, but I am now winning at a solid rate over the hands that I have played. I ran so stupidly hot though that it would have been impossible to lose, so it's far too early to make any statements about whether I'll be able to beat the games in the long run, but I do feel like my opponents make a lot of mistakes that I would avoid, and often substantial ones, so I think I have an edge. I guess we'll have to wait and time will tell. It's not like I don't make my fair sure of blunders. However I will say that Omaha is a pretty easy game when every time you get in a reraised pot you flop the nuts. Practically every time my opponent had AAxx I outflopped him (and my hand held), and if I had AAxx in a reraised pot I usually flopped two pair or a straight with my other two cards and instead of having lots of outs against just a pair of aces my opponent got the rest of his money in on the flop drawing practically dead. Of course the times they did outflop me I would just get there. Let me find a few examples.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607438 - I'm pretty sure Kongsgaard was just tilting hard from losing some big pots, but I always thought he was complete nutcase at tournaments too. I don't see how getting 2 times the pot in on this flop this way can ever be good for him though.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607445 - can't blame him for thinking he has 11 outs, but he's obv drawing to runner runner against my luckbox.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607440 - Sometimes it's ok to check! (and get there obv)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607461 - They finally outflop me but I still have a lot of outs and get there of course.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607471 - This is probably the pinnacle of running good. I mean seriously this isn't even fair.
Here is a graph of the last 2 days because everyone loves pictures! Pretty much all 3/6 and 5/10 PLO.
I even had a nice winning holdem cash session too. I haven't seen many good 25/50 games lately but I can usually track down some juicy 10/20 games. Anyways more FTOPS tomorrow. I haven't made it out of the first hour in my last four FTOPS events (not counting the HORSE event because it's limit) due to ridiculous coolers. There are 2 good events tomorrow but they may be the last 2 I play since I'm probably going to my roommate's cabin for the weekend. It'll hurt to miss the $2500 event and $500 final event but I've been grinding so hard lately that it can't be a bad idea to get out of the house for a change. I guess.
Mike
Alright, moving on, I also kicked ass at Omaha in the last 2 days. I still haven't played anything resembling a decent sample size, but I am now winning at a solid rate over the hands that I have played. I ran so stupidly hot though that it would have been impossible to lose, so it's far too early to make any statements about whether I'll be able to beat the games in the long run, but I do feel like my opponents make a lot of mistakes that I would avoid, and often substantial ones, so I think I have an edge. I guess we'll have to wait and time will tell. It's not like I don't make my fair sure of blunders. However I will say that Omaha is a pretty easy game when every time you get in a reraised pot you flop the nuts. Practically every time my opponent had AAxx I outflopped him (and my hand held), and if I had AAxx in a reraised pot I usually flopped two pair or a straight with my other two cards and instead of having lots of outs against just a pair of aces my opponent got the rest of his money in on the flop drawing practically dead. Of course the times they did outflop me I would just get there. Let me find a few examples.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607438 - I'm pretty sure Kongsgaard was just tilting hard from losing some big pots, but I always thought he was complete nutcase at tournaments too. I don't see how getting 2 times the pot in on this flop this way can ever be good for him though.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607445 - can't blame him for thinking he has 11 outs, but he's obv drawing to runner runner against my luckbox.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607440 - Sometimes it's ok to check! (and get there obv)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607461 - They finally outflop me but I still have a lot of outs and get there of course.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2607471 - This is probably the pinnacle of running good. I mean seriously this isn't even fair.
| Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|
| AhAcKcQh | 85.12% | 639 | 118 |
| Kh9hQs6s | 14.88% | 63 | 118 |
Here is a graph of the last 2 days because everyone loves pictures! Pretty much all 3/6 and 5/10 PLO.
I even had a nice winning holdem cash session too. I haven't seen many good 25/50 games lately but I can usually track down some juicy 10/20 games. Anyways more FTOPS tomorrow. I haven't made it out of the first hour in my last four FTOPS events (not counting the HORSE event because it's limit) due to ridiculous coolers. There are 2 good events tomorrow but they may be the last 2 I play since I'm probably going to my roommate's cabin for the weekend. It'll hurt to miss the $2500 event and $500 final event but I've been grinding so hard lately that it can't be a bad idea to get out of the house for a change. I guess.
Mike
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Brutal week...
Well I haven't posted in a while, I guess i didn't really have much to write about because I've basically just been getting my ass kicked all week. I've started playing some 2/4-5/10 PLO full stacked to try to learn the game, and while I feel like I'm playing reasonably well the results just haven't been there so far. I might be running bad, but I don't really have the experience playing PLO to really be able to tell. I've even been taking a bit of a hit at Holdem cash games lately, though for the most part I'm pretty happy with my play in those and I think I've just been running bad. Here is an example in which I get "Matusowned" (when he made his little speech I thought he had AA for sure hence my chat).
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592084
Even tournaments haven't been going that well. I've been playing a lot of the step 5 and step 6 WSOP satellites. I won 6 or 7 seats for the main event last year but this year I haven't been able to win a single one. I've been heads up for the seat in Step 6 three times against fish who probably qualified from like step 1 or something and lost every time. Unfortunately a lot of that is my own fault for playing poorly. MTTs have been going a little bit better but still far from stellar. FTOPS began on Wednesday and I've played several events. I got heads up in round one of the $500 triple shootout, but I lost again. This time I feel I played pretty well though, and I was very unlucky to lose on this hand:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592104
I also final tabled the Stars Super Tuesday this week but finished 7th for just $12K. Today I had a big stack deep in Event 7, $100+rebuys NLHE, but in the span of a single orbit I went from a top 10 stack to busto 69th. First I doubled up a shortstack with 99 vs AK, then another with AQs vs K9, and I still had an average stack when I lost AK vs JJ for the rest in three completely standard boring coolers. Today there was also a sick tournament on Everest, a $3000 buy-in with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool against almost all the complete morons who play on that site who satellited into a tournament way above their bankroll. Unfortunately I lost this sick pot to end my tournament really early.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592132
I probably should have folded the river because satellite winners usually don't have the guts to run a bluff like this, but I was almost certain he didn't flop a set from the flop action and his timing, I was pretty sure he'd raise the turn with AQ, so that just left a KJ or KT type hand and I had one of the kings.... On the other hand he instashoved the river which seemed super strong, but it's especially hard to fold the hand in practice after having been so huge on the flop. Anyways tomorrow night I have a softball game which seems infinitely more fun than poker right now, so I think I'm going to just play some of the early tournaments and go to that assuming I don't go deep in anything. If I do then cool hopefully I make some big money or something.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592084
Even tournaments haven't been going that well. I've been playing a lot of the step 5 and step 6 WSOP satellites. I won 6 or 7 seats for the main event last year but this year I haven't been able to win a single one. I've been heads up for the seat in Step 6 three times against fish who probably qualified from like step 1 or something and lost every time. Unfortunately a lot of that is my own fault for playing poorly. MTTs have been going a little bit better but still far from stellar. FTOPS began on Wednesday and I've played several events. I got heads up in round one of the $500 triple shootout, but I lost again. This time I feel I played pretty well though, and I was very unlucky to lose on this hand:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592104
I also final tabled the Stars Super Tuesday this week but finished 7th for just $12K. Today I had a big stack deep in Event 7, $100+rebuys NLHE, but in the span of a single orbit I went from a top 10 stack to busto 69th. First I doubled up a shortstack with 99 vs AK, then another with AQs vs K9, and I still had an average stack when I lost AK vs JJ for the rest in three completely standard boring coolers. Today there was also a sick tournament on Everest, a $3000 buy-in with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool against almost all the complete morons who play on that site who satellited into a tournament way above their bankroll. Unfortunately I lost this sick pot to end my tournament really early.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592132
I probably should have folded the river because satellite winners usually don't have the guts to run a bluff like this, but I was almost certain he didn't flop a set from the flop action and his timing, I was pretty sure he'd raise the turn with AQ, so that just left a KJ or KT type hand and I had one of the kings.... On the other hand he instashoved the river which seemed super strong, but it's especially hard to fold the hand in practice after having been so huge on the flop. Anyways tomorrow night I have a softball game which seems infinitely more fun than poker right now, so I think I'm going to just play some of the early tournaments and go to that assuming I don't go deep in anything. If I do then cool hopefully I make some big money or something.
Mike
Friday, May 02, 2008
Epic Fail
The PLO heater came to a crashing halt the last couple nights, as expected really. At my peak I was up around 100K but I lost most of that back. The thing is that PLO is such a sick high variance game and shortstacking it in particular is even swingier that winning/losing 12 buyins or whaetver is really not statistically significant in any way. It's a whole lot of money at these stakes though obviously. Anyways seems only fair I post some of the hands that led to my demise if I'm going to brag when I win. This time I will include some strategic musings for my benefit as much as yours.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551339 - The flop is weird. I will often run into the straight, but I have a ton of equity against the straight and there is a lot of value in protecting my hand when it's best. I will also get called by worse hands sometimes (smaller sets especially) so there is definitely a lot of value in betting. My hand is so strong that if it's beat I will be getting all-in regardless since I have a short stack, so I need to play in such a way to maximize value when it's not beat. In holdem this often might mean checking and taking some line where i give worse hands a chance to bluff. In Omaha you've got to bet to protect your hand a lot more in these situations and inducing bluffs is not a big part of your overall strategy.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551404 - Sigh.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551409
Preflop:
7c 5c 3c 4d 30%
Ac Ah 9h 5s 34.9%
Qs Kd 9d Jh 35.1%
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551421 - This spot really sucks. I should probably just fold preflop too. I'm pretty much either dead to a set or flipping against a wrap straight draw but I'm getting 2:1. Oh I have backdoor flush draw too that's pretty hot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551433 - Another weird one where I bloat the pot preflop with likely a small equity edge and everyone calls. The flop is awkward though because I'm pot committed. Betting didn't really seem to accomplish much, maybe I should anyways because two of the guys are being squeezed in the middle and may have to fold a lot. Anyways I call the shove obviously with my gutter and backdoor nut flush draw and some random overcards and incredibly the others fold and I have 40% equity.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551459 - Sigh again.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551462 - Benyamine takes more of my money. He was me and timex nemesis when we shortstacked the big NL Holdem games.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551468 - Yawn
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551473 - I dunno I think I have to call the flop because there's so many ways he can be drawing and I do have at least a few outs regardless getting big pot odds.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551483 - Dang.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551485 - Sigh this was a tilt hand. In general I think my bluff on the turn is a very strong play. Against this player it's just awful and I need to check behind and get there.
Oh well I still made a little money and overall it was actually a really good learning experience. I'll take it easy on the high stakes PLO again for a while but if I see a game that's just really good since I know all the players now it might be hard to resist. There's definitely money to be made in these games. The stats on here are just crazy:
http://www.highstakesdb.com/results.aspx
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551339 - The flop is weird. I will often run into the straight, but I have a ton of equity against the straight and there is a lot of value in protecting my hand when it's best. I will also get called by worse hands sometimes (smaller sets especially) so there is definitely a lot of value in betting. My hand is so strong that if it's beat I will be getting all-in regardless since I have a short stack, so I need to play in such a way to maximize value when it's not beat. In holdem this often might mean checking and taking some line where i give worse hands a chance to bluff. In Omaha you've got to bet to protect your hand a lot more in these situations and inducing bluffs is not a big part of your overall strategy.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551404 - Sigh.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551409
Preflop:
7c 5c 3c 4d 30%
Ac Ah 9h 5s 34.9%
Qs Kd 9d Jh 35.1%
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551421 - This spot really sucks. I should probably just fold preflop too. I'm pretty much either dead to a set or flipping against a wrap straight draw but I'm getting 2:1. Oh I have backdoor flush draw too that's pretty hot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551433 - Another weird one where I bloat the pot preflop with likely a small equity edge and everyone calls. The flop is awkward though because I'm pot committed. Betting didn't really seem to accomplish much, maybe I should anyways because two of the guys are being squeezed in the middle and may have to fold a lot. Anyways I call the shove obviously with my gutter and backdoor nut flush draw and some random overcards and incredibly the others fold and I have 40% equity.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551459 - Sigh again.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551462 - Benyamine takes more of my money. He was me and timex nemesis when we shortstacked the big NL Holdem games.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551468 - Yawn
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551473 - I dunno I think I have to call the flop because there's so many ways he can be drawing and I do have at least a few outs regardless getting big pot odds.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551483 - Dang.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551485 - Sigh this was a tilt hand. In general I think my bluff on the turn is a very strong play. Against this player it's just awful and I need to check behind and get there.
Oh well I still made a little money and overall it was actually a really good learning experience. I'll take it easy on the high stakes PLO again for a while but if I see a game that's just really good since I know all the players now it might be hard to resist. There's definitely money to be made in these games. The stats on here are just crazy:
http://www.highstakesdb.com/results.aspx
Mike
Monday, April 28, 2008
How to Tilt
Well I had an interesting weekend from a poker perspective to say the least. There were some really big special tournaments this weekend so I played a fair bit. On Saturday there was the sickest tournament ever, the Pacific $1000 buy-in $3 Million guaranteed. It got 2200ish runners meaning around $800K was donated to the prize pool by the site. The payout structure was really top heavy to try to attract players: 1st = $1 million, 2nd = $400K, and then more gradual from there. Also, basically everyone on Pacific is terribad so it's really awesome. Sadly it wasn't my time as I held on for a while on the short stack before losing AA to JJ around 5 hours in but still short of the money. I also busted everything else I played including the PokerRoom/Mansion grand which is also awesome, and I was even down slightly at my 10/20 and 25/50 cash games after a decent number of hands. Yup, it was time to tilt, and as people who have been reading this blog for a while will know, that usually means shortstacking high stakes pot-limit omaha.
Following the standard "move up to get even" theory of tilted shot-taking I sat at 200/400 PLO with my usual minimum $8K buy-in. Finally luck was on my side for once that day and I quickly doubled up. Success! Out of the hole and showing a small profit for the day, time to quit and go out for the night right? You must not be very good at tilted shot-taking. You see now I'm freerolling on my next $8K buy-in! And look how easy it was to randomly win that coinflip and make a bunch of money, surely I can just do that again no problem. So I bought into the other table and, sure enough, within a few hands I had doubled my buy-in again. Easy game, I thought, but now I couldn't sit back in for 30 minutes anyways so I quit and went to dinner. As it turned out not much was going on that night so I stayed home. When I got back I noticed 3 200/400 PLO tables going. Well, gotta play the rush right? In quick succession I won big pots on all 3 tables and quit for good this time. In total I played 34 hands of Omaha and made $53.5K. Here are the big pots I won, minimal comments on strategy because I probably still suck at omaha.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533002
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533004
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533007
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533011
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533014 - MSampoerna is a billionaire that owns Mansion among other companies, and he had just taken a very bad beat on the previous hand so I figured he was just trying to tilt the rest off in this hand. As it turned out I looked it up and I had 35.8% equity all-in 3 ways preflop, and I outskilled them on the river card.
Sunday went similarly, I took some rough beats in the 3 tournaments I got deep in and busted everything, then played a bunch of PLO to try to get even. This time I swung up and down all over the place but luckily I came out ahead ~$10K in the end to put the day in the black. The PLO games seem really good right now, I imagine a good player with a sufficient bankroll could make a lot of money as there seemed to always be one or two players that were pretty weak. I guess I'll keep taking shots at them buying in for the minimum when they look good and see how things go. Anyways I'm back to Toronto tomorrow. Peace,
Mike
Following the standard "move up to get even" theory of tilted shot-taking I sat at 200/400 PLO with my usual minimum $8K buy-in. Finally luck was on my side for once that day and I quickly doubled up. Success! Out of the hole and showing a small profit for the day, time to quit and go out for the night right? You must not be very good at tilted shot-taking. You see now I'm freerolling on my next $8K buy-in! And look how easy it was to randomly win that coinflip and make a bunch of money, surely I can just do that again no problem. So I bought into the other table and, sure enough, within a few hands I had doubled my buy-in again. Easy game, I thought, but now I couldn't sit back in for 30 minutes anyways so I quit and went to dinner. As it turned out not much was going on that night so I stayed home. When I got back I noticed 3 200/400 PLO tables going. Well, gotta play the rush right? In quick succession I won big pots on all 3 tables and quit for good this time. In total I played 34 hands of Omaha and made $53.5K. Here are the big pots I won, minimal comments on strategy because I probably still suck at omaha.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533002
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533004
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533007
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533011
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533014 - MSampoerna is a billionaire that owns Mansion among other companies, and he had just taken a very bad beat on the previous hand so I figured he was just trying to tilt the rest off in this hand. As it turned out I looked it up and I had 35.8% equity all-in 3 ways preflop, and I outskilled them on the river card.
Sunday went similarly, I took some rough beats in the 3 tournaments I got deep in and busted everything, then played a bunch of PLO to try to get even. This time I swung up and down all over the place but luckily I came out ahead ~$10K in the end to put the day in the black. The PLO games seem really good right now, I imagine a good player with a sufficient bankroll could make a lot of money as there seemed to always be one or two players that were pretty weak. I guess I'll keep taking shots at them buying in for the minimum when they look good and see how things go. Anyways I'm back to Toronto tomorrow. Peace,
Mike
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Back Home!
Update!: Checkout my poker commentating debut. TwoRags has posted a couple clips from the live $1000 sit and go we played in LA back in January.
Nath vs. Vivek
Jose Canseco bluffs Serge
Well I'm back home in St. John's for the next week. Saturday was my 24th birthday so between that and the fact I'd been on the road for 3 weeks already in Europe I decided to skip the WPT Championship 25K event. I'm actually not planning to play any more live events until the end of May when I'm making the move to Vegas for a month and a half again for the World Series of Poker. Last year I was extremely burnt out from poker by the end of the series so this year I'm going to try to do a few things different to avoid that including taking the next month off from live poker.
I haven't played much poker in the last week or so. I busted out of the 2K euro event in Monte Carlo pretty quickly and then spent most of the rest of the trip drinking in the player's lounge. PokerStars really did an amazing job with this. The player's lounge had free drinks: water, coke, redbull, and beer. It had a wii and a PS3 set up on big LCD screens, as well as a foosball table and a couple laptops set up in the battleship format to play heads-up against each other or often some of the Team PokerStars pros. Considering the prices for drinks throughout the rest of Monaco (20E+ at the hot local night club) hanging around there was a pretty popular option amongst the players when there wasn't much else on the go, and it's really pretty incredible of them to treat their players so well.
Finally, I promised pictures from the trip so here are a few. I only have pics from Pisa on my camera at the moment, I'll see if anyone else has some from Florence or Monte Carlo that I can steal.
The leaning tower obviously.
Mike
Nath vs. Vivek
Jose Canseco bluffs Serge
Well I'm back home in St. John's for the next week. Saturday was my 24th birthday so between that and the fact I'd been on the road for 3 weeks already in Europe I decided to skip the WPT Championship 25K event. I'm actually not planning to play any more live events until the end of May when I'm making the move to Vegas for a month and a half again for the World Series of Poker. Last year I was extremely burnt out from poker by the end of the series so this year I'm going to try to do a few things different to avoid that including taking the next month off from live poker.
I haven't played much poker in the last week or so. I busted out of the 2K euro event in Monte Carlo pretty quickly and then spent most of the rest of the trip drinking in the player's lounge. PokerStars really did an amazing job with this. The player's lounge had free drinks: water, coke, redbull, and beer. It had a wii and a PS3 set up on big LCD screens, as well as a foosball table and a couple laptops set up in the battleship format to play heads-up against each other or often some of the Team PokerStars pros. Considering the prices for drinks throughout the rest of Monaco (20E+ at the hot local night club) hanging around there was a pretty popular option amongst the players when there wasn't much else on the go, and it's really pretty incredible of them to treat their players so well.
Finally, I promised pictures from the trip so here are a few. I only have pics from Pisa on my camera at the moment, I'll see if anyone else has some from Florence or Monte Carlo that I can steal.
The Cathedral.
The leaning tower obviously.
Me at the top of the tower with the cathedral below.
Mike
Monday, April 14, 2008
Busto (Updated with Details)
OK let's do a quick recap of Day 2. I quickly chipped up to about 27K winning small pots and picking up the blinds, unfortunately most of the hands I picked up the blinds with were monsters that I definitely would have preferred to get action with. Then this hand happens to set me back where I started.
Hand 1: 300/600 a75 Folds to this Russian guy on my right in a PokerStars Supernova Elite shirt who shoves 7Kish. I reshove AQ and lose to 44. Back to 17K. From there I manage to chip back up to around 22K when this absurd hand happens.
Hand 2: This LAGgy French guy raises to 1500 in MP, and he basically does this a lot with likely all sorts of stupid hands, but raises bigger with legitimiate hands. He seemed but bad but I didn't realize what a complete nutcase he was until after this hand. I decide to just reraise and pick up the pot. I find A3o and make it 5K. He insta-calls. OK I still definitely think he has a weak hand. Flop T94r, I bet 7K, he instacalls. I only have 10K left so I give up on the 6 turn and fold to his bet. He turns over his hand and I expect it to be QJ and put me on lifetilt but he actually has the nizzles, 87o. From this point on he just keeps playing crazier and crazier.
Hand 3: 400/800 a100 PokerStars shirt raises to 2100, I shove 11K w/ 66 in the SB he calls with ATo and I hold to double.
Hand 4: Just after this it folds to me in the CO and I raise to 2200 with 99. The BB is not back from break yet and Luca Pagano on my left starts counting chips and I'm praying he reraises me. He obliges and makes it 8200, I ship for 22K and he folds getting over 2:1 yay.
Hand 5: Maniac limps and all fold to me in the BB with 34K now. I make it 3300 with KTo for value and he obv instacalls. Flop T84 two spades, I bet 4600 he makes it 10K I call. I'm not worried about spades because he'd make a huge raise with a flush draw. I really think he's on a complete bluff or has like 54s or 33 because I've seen him miniraise as a pure bluff before. I'm just letting him hang himself. Turn 8, not the best card but whatever. I check, he bets 13K I shove for 7K more he calls. T6s for him I've got him dead to a chop, river A no 70K stack for me.
Hand 6: 500/1000 a100. I get moved to a new table and chip up to 48K winning a few small pots and mixing in a resteal. I open to 2700 with JTo in the HJ, guy on my left calls and old Italian guy in the SB calls. Flop 942r, old guy leads out 3900. Looks like the standard trying to figure out where he's at bet so I inform him that he is losing by making it 12K. Guy on my left folds but he instacalls. Turn 6 he checks and I consider shoving since I only have about a pot size bet left and I still don't think he has much but I'm not cool enough to pull the trigger on something like that so I give up. River 7 chk/chk he tables J9s I muck. I remembered a hand afterwards where I saw him completely station a guy and realized I shouldn't have even bothered bluffing the flop. Discussing afterwards while drinking someone made the interesting generalization that in the US or UK against the nitty grinders there they always love to "play good" by "finding out where they're at" and folding to a raise on the flop so my bluff is good against them, but against an Italian, Frenchman, or Spaniard I'm basically lighting money on fire because they just don't play that sophisticated yet.
Hand 7: 600/1200 a100 So for once I definitely do not have my typical "SirNit" table image which is pretty awesome as it gets me lots of action here. Old guy limps in EP, SB completes, I find AA in the BB with my 30K stack and make it 4800. Limper folds and I'm thinking 'damn that was unexpected, now the SB obv has nothing and folds and I don't get paid off with AA again.' "How much do you have?" Speaking of unexpcted... I push out my chips where he can see them. He pushes in a stack of brown 5k chips and I do one of my typical instacall and turn by hand over immediately. He dejectedly tables 55 and the door card is obv a 5. 952 two clubs though so I have some backdoor draws, and I even turn a flush draw but brick the river.
So overall the day actually went pretty well except for when I got in pots that would have given me an average or better stack, in those I just got crushed. I'll probably play the 2K event tomorrow though I guess.
Mike
Hand 1: 300/600 a75 Folds to this Russian guy on my right in a PokerStars Supernova Elite shirt who shoves 7Kish. I reshove AQ and lose to 44. Back to 17K. From there I manage to chip back up to around 22K when this absurd hand happens.
Hand 2: This LAGgy French guy raises to 1500 in MP, and he basically does this a lot with likely all sorts of stupid hands, but raises bigger with legitimiate hands. He seemed but bad but I didn't realize what a complete nutcase he was until after this hand. I decide to just reraise and pick up the pot. I find A3o and make it 5K. He insta-calls. OK I still definitely think he has a weak hand. Flop T94r, I bet 7K, he instacalls. I only have 10K left so I give up on the 6 turn and fold to his bet. He turns over his hand and I expect it to be QJ and put me on lifetilt but he actually has the nizzles, 87o. From this point on he just keeps playing crazier and crazier.
Hand 3: 400/800 a100 PokerStars shirt raises to 2100, I shove 11K w/ 66 in the SB he calls with ATo and I hold to double.
Hand 4: Just after this it folds to me in the CO and I raise to 2200 with 99. The BB is not back from break yet and Luca Pagano on my left starts counting chips and I'm praying he reraises me. He obliges and makes it 8200, I ship for 22K and he folds getting over 2:1 yay.
Hand 5: Maniac limps and all fold to me in the BB with 34K now. I make it 3300 with KTo for value and he obv instacalls. Flop T84 two spades, I bet 4600 he makes it 10K I call. I'm not worried about spades because he'd make a huge raise with a flush draw. I really think he's on a complete bluff or has like 54s or 33 because I've seen him miniraise as a pure bluff before. I'm just letting him hang himself. Turn 8, not the best card but whatever. I check, he bets 13K I shove for 7K more he calls. T6s for him I've got him dead to a chop, river A no 70K stack for me.
Hand 6: 500/1000 a100. I get moved to a new table and chip up to 48K winning a few small pots and mixing in a resteal. I open to 2700 with JTo in the HJ, guy on my left calls and old Italian guy in the SB calls. Flop 942r, old guy leads out 3900. Looks like the standard trying to figure out where he's at bet so I inform him that he is losing by making it 12K. Guy on my left folds but he instacalls. Turn 6 he checks and I consider shoving since I only have about a pot size bet left and I still don't think he has much but I'm not cool enough to pull the trigger on something like that so I give up. River 7 chk/chk he tables J9s I muck. I remembered a hand afterwards where I saw him completely station a guy and realized I shouldn't have even bothered bluffing the flop. Discussing afterwards while drinking someone made the interesting generalization that in the US or UK against the nitty grinders there they always love to "play good" by "finding out where they're at" and folding to a raise on the flop so my bluff is good against them, but against an Italian, Frenchman, or Spaniard I'm basically lighting money on fire because they just don't play that sophisticated yet.
Hand 7: 600/1200 a100 So for once I definitely do not have my typical "SirNit" table image which is pretty awesome as it gets me lots of action here. Old guy limps in EP, SB completes, I find AA in the BB with my 30K stack and make it 4800. Limper folds and I'm thinking 'damn that was unexpected, now the SB obv has nothing and folds and I don't get paid off with AA again.' "How much do you have?" Speaking of unexpcted... I push out my chips where he can see them. He pushes in a stack of brown 5k chips and I do one of my typical instacall and turn by hand over immediately. He dejectedly tables 55 and the door card is obv a 5. 952 two clubs though so I have some backdoor draws, and I even turn a flush draw but brick the river.
So overall the day actually went pretty well except for when I got in pots that would have given me an average or better stack, in those I just got crushed. I'll probably play the 2K event tomorrow though I guess.
Mike
Sunday, April 13, 2008
16.7K on to Day 2
It was a pretty frustrating day. I more than doubled my stack at my first table to 32K but then got moved to a new table that was pretty tough and didn't make any more hands. I bled down to 16.7K without losing any real substantial pot which was even less fun than it sounds. However blinds are still only 200/400 a50 when we return tomorrow so I have lots of time to pick up some hands. Hopefully I get a better table draw, there are so many bad players I definitely got extremely unlucky with table draws today. I don't feel like recounting all my hands, here's one that describes the 2nd half of my day:
150/300 a25 I raise AQs to 900 in EMP, one of the decent aggro players across the table calls. Flop JT5r, I bet 1600 he calls. Turn 7 chk/chk. River A. omg I finally made the top pair!!!! So I'm trying to figure out how to get value out of the hand, only to realize that not only can I not value bet, I have to check and fold to a bet because his entire range basically just got there way harder than I got there and the stuff that didn't is almost never bluffing. So I check, he bets 5200 and I sigh and fold because he has the nuts.
Mike
150/300 a25 I raise AQs to 900 in EMP, one of the decent aggro players across the table calls. Flop JT5r, I bet 1600 he calls. Turn 7 chk/chk. River A. omg I finally made the top pair!!!! So I'm trying to figure out how to get value out of the hand, only to realize that not only can I not value bet, I have to check and fold to a bet because his entire range basically just got there way harder than I got there and the stuff that didn't is almost never bluffing. So I check, he bets 5200 and I sigh and fold because he has the nuts.
Mike
Saturday, April 12, 2008
EPT Monte Carlo Day 1B
So I play tomorrow (Sunday). Looks like there's going to be around 800 players so probably over 2 million euros for first. I'm not ready to do tell you all about Monte Carlo yet because I didn't leave my room today. Last night was the PokerStars cocktail party which was a lot of fun. It seems like everyone is here, this tournament is just big. Anyways I ended up having a bit too much fun trying to take advantage of free drinks as opposed to $10+ drinks like anywhere else here. So today I just lied around and did nothing all afternoon. In the evening I played the Saturday afternoon EST tournaments to get my mind back on poker for tomorrow but had little luck. I also mixed in some cash games though and ran really well at those. I was up $22K at one point ($20K on one 25/50 table) but I lost a few big pots at the end to finish up only $13K. I haven't posted any cash hands in a while so here are some of the big pots from today:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425185 - I decided to slowplay preflop. It should still be fairly obvious I need a biggish hand to call here so I was pretty surprised to get paid off by such a weak hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425213 - His little minireraise was scary and I almost decided to play the hand more passively by just calling it. He was an unknown player to me who bought in fairly short and had run it up and on this site that usually means a fish. He didn't seem to be that bad though and passive players can definitely have AA or KK here a lot. I decided that it was likely enough he was just doing something stupid and would give me lots of money so I opted to just try to get it in preflop.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425200 - A very skillful hand on my part. Notice how I can win from either side of these races, with the AK or the pair, the sign of a real expert.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425254 - Here I mixed in a 3-bet bluff. It's hard to get action from worse hands on the flop having overrepresented my hand preflop so I check behind for pot control. This gives him the chance to bluff with worse hands and also lets me see some more cards to try to improve my hand if I happen to be beat. If he's slowplaying a big pair which is not all that unlikely and I make 2 pair or better I may win a huge pot instead of getting checkraised off my hand if I bet. I backdoor my flush and win a nice pot.
So I'm rolling along unable to lose a pot until these two hands at the very end of the session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425308 - I'm never sure how to play the turn here. I usually just lead out but then if he raises me it's really ugly. I probably have to fold but it's not a fold I'm entirely comfortable making since it feels so weak. I decided to just check/call down and give him the chance to run a big multi-street bluff trying to represent a hand like AK. In particular once he bets big on the turn I'm very concerned he has a huge hand and I definitely am not going to raise him, but I certainly can't fold at any point.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425343 - Just one of those gross hands. I don't think I can play it any other way but the queen is such a bad turn card, as soon as it hit I just had that feeling that I was about to lose a lot of money.
Anyways time to get some rest before I play tomorrow. Play starts at 1pm here so 7am EST. CardPlayer is here doing live coverage (www.cardplayer.com) so if you're bored that's probably the best place to check and see if they happen to have any updates about me.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425185 - I decided to slowplay preflop. It should still be fairly obvious I need a biggish hand to call here so I was pretty surprised to get paid off by such a weak hand.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425213 - His little minireraise was scary and I almost decided to play the hand more passively by just calling it. He was an unknown player to me who bought in fairly short and had run it up and on this site that usually means a fish. He didn't seem to be that bad though and passive players can definitely have AA or KK here a lot. I decided that it was likely enough he was just doing something stupid and would give me lots of money so I opted to just try to get it in preflop.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425200 - A very skillful hand on my part. Notice how I can win from either side of these races, with the AK or the pair, the sign of a real expert.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425254 - Here I mixed in a 3-bet bluff. It's hard to get action from worse hands on the flop having overrepresented my hand preflop so I check behind for pot control. This gives him the chance to bluff with worse hands and also lets me see some more cards to try to improve my hand if I happen to be beat. If he's slowplaying a big pair which is not all that unlikely and I make 2 pair or better I may win a huge pot instead of getting checkraised off my hand if I bet. I backdoor my flush and win a nice pot.
So I'm rolling along unable to lose a pot until these two hands at the very end of the session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425308 - I'm never sure how to play the turn here. I usually just lead out but then if he raises me it's really ugly. I probably have to fold but it's not a fold I'm entirely comfortable making since it feels so weak. I decided to just check/call down and give him the chance to run a big multi-street bluff trying to represent a hand like AK. In particular once he bets big on the turn I'm very concerned he has a huge hand and I definitely am not going to raise him, but I certainly can't fold at any point.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425343 - Just one of those gross hands. I don't think I can play it any other way but the queen is such a bad turn card, as soon as it hit I just had that feeling that I was about to lose a lot of money.
Anyways time to get some rest before I play tomorrow. Play starts at 1pm here so 7am EST. CardPlayer is here doing live coverage (www.cardplayer.com) so if you're bored that's probably the best place to check and see if they happen to have any updates about me.
Mike
Friday, April 11, 2008
Pisa, Florence, and Monte Carlo!
Hello, bonjour! I am now settled in the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel and Resort, and it is pretty much the best place ever. I'll have lots of time to rave about it in the coming week though once I've seen and done more here, for now I want to talk about the last few days doing the tourist thing in Italy. So timex, ch0ppy (Matt), and I stayed in San Remo Sunday night and played online tournaments until 7am or whatever because of the time difference. Our plan was then to check out Pisa and Florence before heading to Monte Carlo for the EPT grand final, but at the last minute while we were looking for hotel/finalizing our plans before leaving timex dropped out and decided to just stay in San Remo and be a degenerate, so only ch0ppy and I ended up going. We decided to try to keep the trip cheap so we ended up booking a cheap hotel in Pisa for 3 nights. The first night we arrived and crashed almost immediately after a quick wander around town and bite to eat. The second day we went to see the leaning tower as well as checking out the rest of "Piazza dei Miracoli", or Square of Miracles as it is called. The third day we went to Florence for the day and did one of those open top bus tours all around the city.
So day 1 ch0ppy and I leave timex passed out and hop on the train towards Pisa. We transfer in Genova and arrive in Pisa around 4 or 5pm after a 5 and a half hour journey counting wait time for our transfer. It's a short cab ride to our hotel from Pisa Centrale but as tired as we are it's still too early to sleep. We decide to kill some time wandering around Pisa looking for a decent place to eat and end up at a pizzeria by our hotel. Our server looks like the stereoypical Italian pizza man from North American tv/movies which amuses ch0ppy greatly. We're so tired we can't even finish our pizzas and we're passed out in our uncomfortable 45 Euro/night beds by 8:30.
We sleep in until just before 10am and miss breakfast, but we're feeling refreshed and ready to do the tourist thing. We get a cab to the Square of Miracles and after grabbing lunch at a place the cab driver recommended nearby (the only cab driver we had in Pisa that spoke any english beyond "leaning tower" or "train station") we see the tower for the first time. It really is a pretty remarkable building to see first hand. The lean is quite pronounced (approximately 5 degrees, though it was even more than that in the 1990s before it was closed and scientists had to figure out a way to straighten it up a bit and prevent its collapse), and the white marble with which it is built is quite striking. We paid our 15 Euros each to go inside and climb the ~295 steps to the top, and it really is a spectacular view down on the city, the cathedral, and the rest of the square. We next paid our 10 Euros to check out the rest of the buildings of the square. The cathedral was quite nice as well. I've never been inside one before so I was very impressed, though the Duomo in Florence the next day blew it away, but the rest of the square was quite underwhelming, though we did end up learning a lot about the history of Pisa and the Square of Miracles. I also paid 30 Euro-cents to take a piss. Go figure.
The next day was a quick hour long train ride to Florence where we met skier_5 (Tommy) at his hotel and went for lunch. The three of us then got on one of those hope on hop off open roof bus tours of Florence. We went around on the first line seeing some of the sights, only hopping off on a terrace across the river from the main part of the city where there was a statue by Michelangelo and a great view down on Florence. We then all went to the Duomo (cathedral) which was really nice. Most impressive was the huge mural way way up high on the ceiling. We paid to go all the way up to the top of the building and get a closer look at that mural on the way up to really appreciate how huge it is, as well as an incredible view down on to the city. ch0ppy and I then went around on the 2nd bus line which took us way out into Fiesole. We then met back up with skier and Ben Straate (straate on Stars, when I first started playing cash games seriously we were both 3/6 NL regulars on Stars and he was probably the first really aggressive really good player I ran into regularly. Most regs were nits and the few LAGs were terribly spewy. We both moved up to the bigger games fairly quickly.) for dinner. We tried to join them for drinks after but we ran out of time looking for a good bar and ch0ppy and I had to get back to the train station so we could crash back in Pisa for the night.
Yesterday ch0ppy and I checked out of our cheap hotel with no tv or internet and hopped on the train towards Monte Carlo. There were some delays and decently long waits for transfers so the trip took a lot longer than it was supposed to but we finally arrived in Monte Carlo around 9pm. So far I have nothing bad to say about the place. Most of the people we've met speak both english and french very well (french being the official language here), the city looks gorgeous, and the hotel/resort is amazing. More on that note once I've been here longer. I'm sorry no pictures for now. I took a lot in Pisa but my camera battery died and I don't seem to have the charger with me so you'll have to wait on those. ch0ppy got a lot of pictures of everything I missed though. Time to stop sitting in my room and go check this place out. A bien tot,
Mike
So day 1 ch0ppy and I leave timex passed out and hop on the train towards Pisa. We transfer in Genova and arrive in Pisa around 4 or 5pm after a 5 and a half hour journey counting wait time for our transfer. It's a short cab ride to our hotel from Pisa Centrale but as tired as we are it's still too early to sleep. We decide to kill some time wandering around Pisa looking for a decent place to eat and end up at a pizzeria by our hotel. Our server looks like the stereoypical Italian pizza man from North American tv/movies which amuses ch0ppy greatly. We're so tired we can't even finish our pizzas and we're passed out in our uncomfortable 45 Euro/night beds by 8:30.
We sleep in until just before 10am and miss breakfast, but we're feeling refreshed and ready to do the tourist thing. We get a cab to the Square of Miracles and after grabbing lunch at a place the cab driver recommended nearby (the only cab driver we had in Pisa that spoke any english beyond "leaning tower" or "train station") we see the tower for the first time. It really is a pretty remarkable building to see first hand. The lean is quite pronounced (approximately 5 degrees, though it was even more than that in the 1990s before it was closed and scientists had to figure out a way to straighten it up a bit and prevent its collapse), and the white marble with which it is built is quite striking. We paid our 15 Euros each to go inside and climb the ~295 steps to the top, and it really is a spectacular view down on the city, the cathedral, and the rest of the square. We next paid our 10 Euros to check out the rest of the buildings of the square. The cathedral was quite nice as well. I've never been inside one before so I was very impressed, though the Duomo in Florence the next day blew it away, but the rest of the square was quite underwhelming, though we did end up learning a lot about the history of Pisa and the Square of Miracles. I also paid 30 Euro-cents to take a piss. Go figure.
The next day was a quick hour long train ride to Florence where we met skier_5 (Tommy) at his hotel and went for lunch. The three of us then got on one of those hope on hop off open roof bus tours of Florence. We went around on the first line seeing some of the sights, only hopping off on a terrace across the river from the main part of the city where there was a statue by Michelangelo and a great view down on Florence. We then all went to the Duomo (cathedral) which was really nice. Most impressive was the huge mural way way up high on the ceiling. We paid to go all the way up to the top of the building and get a closer look at that mural on the way up to really appreciate how huge it is, as well as an incredible view down on to the city. ch0ppy and I then went around on the 2nd bus line which took us way out into Fiesole. We then met back up with skier and Ben Straate (straate on Stars, when I first started playing cash games seriously we were both 3/6 NL regulars on Stars and he was probably the first really aggressive really good player I ran into regularly. Most regs were nits and the few LAGs were terribly spewy. We both moved up to the bigger games fairly quickly.) for dinner. We tried to join them for drinks after but we ran out of time looking for a good bar and ch0ppy and I had to get back to the train station so we could crash back in Pisa for the night.
Yesterday ch0ppy and I checked out of our cheap hotel with no tv or internet and hopped on the train towards Monte Carlo. There were some delays and decently long waits for transfers so the trip took a lot longer than it was supposed to but we finally arrived in Monte Carlo around 9pm. So far I have nothing bad to say about the place. Most of the people we've met speak both english and french very well (french being the official language here), the city looks gorgeous, and the hotel/resort is amazing. More on that note once I've been here longer. I'm sorry no pictures for now. I took a lot in Pisa but my camera battery died and I don't seem to have the charger with me so you'll have to wait on those. ch0ppy got a lot of pictures of everything I missed though. Time to stop sitting in my room and go check this place out. A bien tot,
Mike
Monday, April 07, 2008
Quick update from San Remo
Yo, so I had no luck in the 2K Euro event. In fact it was a complete disaster and I was out before the end of the third level. We ended up staying here an extra night to play Sunday tournaments. I had a few close calls including 5th in the UB $500 for ~$5200 to finish up a little on the day I think. Anyways now that poker is over with ch0ppy and I are heading to Pisa to check out the ol leaning tower and such, and we're also going to spend at least one day in Florence. It seems like most of our friends have already left for Florence but we were behind on the planning with wanting to play Sundays and all. timex is being a biatch though and not coming with us. He's probably just going to head to Monte Carlo early or something lame like that. So I probably won't be posting on here again until I get to Monte Carlo but I'll try to make sure I get some good pictures for the next update. I know I usually slack on the sight-seeing and picture taking so hopefully I can redeem myself a little.
Mike
Mike
Friday, April 04, 2008
Damn you Shaun Deeb
Could have saved me 5K Euros by not getting sick but instead I had to play the EPT. It was a pretty short day, I doubled up with AKo 4-flushing AKs in a very skillful hand. Then I called a 4xBB shove with K7o and beat his A9o. Now at 36K blinds 600/1200 a100 I get moved to Schaefer's table. He raises UTG 7-handed to 3200, I call with JJ on the button and the BB makes it 11.2K. Schaefer folds, I'm not thrilled about it but shove and BB has QQ. I'd probably fold TT but I think JJ is just good enough I shouldn't be folding. Anyways the 2K Euro event is tomorrow so I'll get in that now I guess.
I haven't talked about San Remo at all, basically the whole area is gorgeous. When I flew into Nice the runway is right next to the sea so it's a pretty sick view of the Mediterranean as you land. The water is that beautiful bright blue rippling calmly. From Nice timex and I got a cab to San Remo, and the entire trip is winding through hills by the coast. There are houses built on the sides of all these hills by the sea that timex claims would just slide down into the sea if he were to give them a little push. The weather has been very nice like 15-20C every day so we've been chilling by the pool a lot. The casino here is kind of small but it's fairly nice and the hotel we're staying at is pretty nice as well. It looked really small from outside but the rooms are actually fairly spacious. We've been going to some good Italian restaurants, lots of pizza and pasta obviously. Speaking of food it's dinner time. Later,
Mike
I haven't talked about San Remo at all, basically the whole area is gorgeous. When I flew into Nice the runway is right next to the sea so it's a pretty sick view of the Mediterranean as you land. The water is that beautiful bright blue rippling calmly. From Nice timex and I got a cab to San Remo, and the entire trip is winding through hills by the coast. There are houses built on the sides of all these hills by the sea that timex claims would just slide down into the sea if he were to give them a little push. The weather has been very nice like 15-20C every day so we've been chilling by the pool a lot. The casino here is kind of small but it's fairly nice and the hotel we're staying at is pretty nice as well. It looked really small from outside but the rooms are actually fairly spacious. We've been going to some good Italian restaurants, lots of pizza and pasta obviously. Speaking of food it's dinner time. Later,
Mike
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
I got into the EPT!
I was a last minute entry into EPT San Remo today when Shaun effing Deeb had to withdraw because he was really sick. I was able to buy-in and take his spot which was pretty awesome, though obviously I feel bad for Shaun and hope he's feeling better soon. I did my best to make the most of the opportunity though. I didn't run especially good today and it was an up and down session. I probably made some small mistakes but all-in-all I'm happy enough with how I played. I was pretty exhasusted all day because I woke up really early this morning and didn't bother trying to get back to sleep since I wasn't supposed to have to do anything today. I ended the day with 17K which is a bit short with blinds starting at 500/1000 tomorrow but it'll do. I was going to write a quick summary of key hands but I'm really just too tired. My stack basically went 10K ---->15K ----> 3K ----> 14K -----> 6K ----->17K throughout the day is the short version. Hopefully I can catch some cards tomorrow and make a little run. Bed time,
Mike
Mike
Sunday, March 30, 2008
I won a donkament!!!....
...and it was so much fun I went ahead and won another one. With no $100K sponsorship package and still a little pissed about the whole ordeal it was clear I had to take matters into my own hands and go get paid. Of course seeing as it was Sunday that meant trying to luckbox some donkaments. Unfortunately all the US-based sites tournaments start super late here and I have a flight at 8am so I didn't really want to bother playing all the late ones and risk having to miss my flight if I was at a final table or something (unless it was a really big final table). Fortunately there are a lot of Euro-donkaments that start at more Euro-friendly times so I just played everything that started from 12pm EST to 5pm EST (6pm-11pm here). Timex told me about a $550 tournament on Betfair that had a $100K guarantee so I made an account there and gave that a shot as well. Lucky he did, because that was where I finally broke my ~9 month slump. It only had 156 players so there was a nice overlay and after a roller coaster final table I finally ran (really) good at the end for once and took it down for $30K.
I guess when it rains it pours though. One tournament I've finished 2nd in at least twice without winning (possibly 3 times not sure) is the Full Tilt $163 tournament. I usually only play the evening one but they now have the usual 3pm one on Sundays as well and it gets a big field. 699 players meant first paid just over $25K and I ran insanely good in this one as well (the first 3 times I got all-in preflop in this tournament in the early-mid stages I was dominated but got there). I cardracked pretty hard at the final table again and shipped this one too. No luck in the other donkaments but +$50k is definitely one of my best days ever and easily my best ever Sunday. Not bad considering I stopped registering 4 hours earlier than usual. Anyways my flight leaves pretty soon so I better go. Peace,
Mike
I guess when it rains it pours though. One tournament I've finished 2nd in at least twice without winning (possibly 3 times not sure) is the Full Tilt $163 tournament. I usually only play the evening one but they now have the usual 3pm one on Sundays as well and it gets a big field. 699 players meant first paid just over $25K and I ran insanely good in this one as well (the first 3 times I got all-in preflop in this tournament in the early-mid stages I was dominated but got there). I cardracked pretty hard at the final table again and shipped this one too. No luck in the other donkaments but +$50k is definitely one of my best days ever and easily my best ever Sunday. Not bad considering I stopped registering 4 hours earlier than usual. Anyways my flight leaves pretty soon so I better go. Peace,
Mike
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sigh.....
Well I'm out of the Everest contest. I don't imagine I ever actually had a chance. The day went pretty well, we played a few sit n gos and I finished 4th and 2nd which is reasonably solid. The interview was two questions, one about Everest and one about poker in general. You get 5 minutes to prepare your thoughts then go in and do a 5 min interview. I got a couple tricky questions but I think I actually handled them pretty well. Anyways then they narrow it down to 20 people at the end of the day. I wasn't selected, but I kind of wasn't surprised. It seemed pretty obvious that their objective point system they claimed would be used was complete bs. Choose one/all of these reasons: I'm Canadian and they're concentrating on the European market. I only recently joined the site mainly for this contest and they wanted to reward their regulars more. They wanted people who were legitimate amateurs to give a shot to "Live the Dream" like the contest name, not someone who was kind of already doing that. Whatever the case, I don't think anything I said could have given me much of a chance as it turns out. I guess I still got paid to hang out in Vienna for a few days which is alright. Vienna seems like a really nice city, but I'm still probably not going to get to seeing much of it with tomorrow being the last Sunday of the quarter hence $1K buy-in Sunday million. I'm pretty much planning to watch March Madness all night, sleep forever because I'm tired and jetlagged as hell, then get up and play Sundays all night. Next up is EPT San Remo which I head to on Monday, I really wish I was playing but it's sold out. Despite the disappointment I somehow still feel really good about this trip, for whatever the hell that's worth.
Mike
Mike
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Everest Contest Preview
I didn't play at all this weekend hence the absence of blog updates. I spent Thursday-Sunday visiting family and friends in the area and enjoying that special holy weekend that comes but once a year: the first weekend of March Madness, when anything can and invariably does happen. Today I played a nice long session to make up for it a little bit though, and made two final tables. I finished 5th in Party Super Monday for ~$1700 and 2nd (siiiiiiiiiigh) in the iPoker (Titan) network $50 rebuy for ~$8K. So I finished up about $6K at tournaments but lost the same amount playing cash so the day was more or less a wash. I'm leaving for Europe on Thursday, with the first stop being Vienna for the Everest Poker live casting (March 28-31). I haven't really gone through what this involves on here yet so I'll take the time to do so now. The 200 players invited compete for 10 sponsorship packages. We are judged in 7 categories:
Blogging Skills: 10
This category was basically just graded on how many entries you write during the last 4 weeks. I wrote more than required so presumably I received 10/10 points.
Internet Voting: 10%
This is the part where all of you came in. We were divided into the groups of 10 players at the final tables we qualified from. I finished 2nd in my group (the winner had ~8500 hits, I got around 6000, and the next guy had under 3000) for 9 points. Thanks!
Online Poker Skill: 20%
Live Poker Skill: 20%
Presumably these are my strongest categories. Very few if any players in the competition will have the kind of poker resume I've built up in both live and online events over the last year or two. There will also be some tournaments played between us at the live casting which will have some weight on the live portion but I don't imagine that will weigh very heavily compared to results in major tournaments.
Personality: 15%
This is the part where you guys deliver your best one-liners. I'm certainly not the biggest personality out there but I'm fairly certain I'm not too big of a douchebag either.
Everest Poker Knowledge: 15%
I've been doing some studying. I'm not really sure how they will test this category or what types of things they expect me to know but I've been absorbing whatever information I can find.
Speaking Skills: 10%
Perhaps not my strongest category but the experience from being on TV for the World Cup of Poker and doing the interviews for that will help a lot as well as experience giving academic presentations and such. Again nothing I'm too concerned about.
So overall I definitely like my chances and I think it'll be a fun weekend in Austria.
After that it's off to EPT San Remo (April 1-5) which has unfortunately sold out. I hadn't bought in yet so I'll probably have to miss the main event, but there's a 2K Euro 2nd chance event and having to just hang out in Italy isn't a terrible fate. Then there's a week to travel around a bit before EPT Monte Carlo (April 11-18) which I've won a package for already. This is the big one. 10K Euro buy-in, last year first was over $2M USD/CAD and it's looking even bigger this year. Winning this would be a pretty good birthday present to myself. As always blog updates should be more frequent when I'm on the road so check back often starting this weekend.
Mike
Blogging Skills: 10
This category was basically just graded on how many entries you write during the last 4 weeks. I wrote more than required so presumably I received 10/10 points.
Internet Voting: 10%
This is the part where all of you came in. We were divided into the groups of 10 players at the final tables we qualified from. I finished 2nd in my group (the winner had ~8500 hits, I got around 6000, and the next guy had under 3000) for 9 points. Thanks!
Online Poker Skill: 20%
Live Poker Skill: 20%
Presumably these are my strongest categories. Very few if any players in the competition will have the kind of poker resume I've built up in both live and online events over the last year or two. There will also be some tournaments played between us at the live casting which will have some weight on the live portion but I don't imagine that will weigh very heavily compared to results in major tournaments.
Personality: 15%
This is the part where you guys deliver your best one-liners. I'm certainly not the biggest personality out there but I'm fairly certain I'm not too big of a douchebag either.
Everest Poker Knowledge: 15%
I've been doing some studying. I'm not really sure how they will test this category or what types of things they expect me to know but I've been absorbing whatever information I can find.
Speaking Skills: 10%
Perhaps not my strongest category but the experience from being on TV for the World Cup of Poker and doing the interviews for that will help a lot as well as experience giving academic presentations and such. Again nothing I'm too concerned about.
So overall I definitely like my chances and I think it'll be a fun weekend in Austria.
After that it's off to EPT San Remo (April 1-5) which has unfortunately sold out. I hadn't bought in yet so I'll probably have to miss the main event, but there's a 2K Euro 2nd chance event and having to just hang out in Italy isn't a terrible fate. Then there's a week to travel around a bit before EPT Monte Carlo (April 11-18) which I've won a package for already. This is the big one. 10K Euro buy-in, last year first was over $2M USD/CAD and it's looking even bigger this year. Winning this would be a pretty good birthday present to myself. As always blog updates should be more frequent when I'm on the road so check back often starting this weekend.
Mike
Monday, March 17, 2008
I'm Back!
So the Everest competition ends this Friday and my position in the online popularity contest part is unlikely to change so I've decided to start cross-posting back here again. I'm sorry I was away for so long but the Everest competition is obviously a pretty big deal for me and even though I like my chances I have to take it seriously and do everything I can to try to win. On to the blog.
It might seem like this a copy/paste of last weekend's blog but I assure you that's not the case. I slept really poorly this weekend for some reason even though I was exhausted. Still, being the hard worker/addict that I am I just grabbed some caffeine and played the usual schedule. On Saturday I busted out of everything super fast except for the Absolute $500 tourney. Again this week I managed some key suckouts and survived pushbotting my shortstack for quite a while as we neared the final table (the structure gets really bad towards the end in this tournament). I held on until the final table slowly increasing my stack. More of the same at the final table as I played very patient (but not passing on any good spots myself) watching the other shortstacks around me bust out and moved up several spots. I managed to win a couple key pots all-in preflop where I had the best hand for a change and get heads up with around 40% of the chips. Unfortunately I then lost a coinflip to finish 2nd for the second week in a row. Another $24K certainly doesn't hurt, but I kinda wonder if I'll ever win one of these things again.
Sunday was a typical disaster so I won't waste too much time on it. I cashed the warmup on Stars but I'm pretty sure that was the only one. I just slept for 15 hours though so I'm feeling pretty good and ready for St. Paddy's day etc... On that note I must go get ready. Even though I'm crossposting here please take the time to continue to visit me over at http://www.everestpoker.com/video/user/?d=799 and click on all my blog entries until this weekend when the contest is over. Thanks again for all your support.
Mike
It might seem like this a copy/paste of last weekend's blog but I assure you that's not the case. I slept really poorly this weekend for some reason even though I was exhausted. Still, being the hard worker/addict that I am I just grabbed some caffeine and played the usual schedule. On Saturday I busted out of everything super fast except for the Absolute $500 tourney. Again this week I managed some key suckouts and survived pushbotting my shortstack for quite a while as we neared the final table (the structure gets really bad towards the end in this tournament). I held on until the final table slowly increasing my stack. More of the same at the final table as I played very patient (but not passing on any good spots myself) watching the other shortstacks around me bust out and moved up several spots. I managed to win a couple key pots all-in preflop where I had the best hand for a change and get heads up with around 40% of the chips. Unfortunately I then lost a coinflip to finish 2nd for the second week in a row. Another $24K certainly doesn't hurt, but I kinda wonder if I'll ever win one of these things again.
Sunday was a typical disaster so I won't waste too much time on it. I cashed the warmup on Stars but I'm pretty sure that was the only one. I just slept for 15 hours though so I'm feeling pretty good and ready for St. Paddy's day etc... On that note I must go get ready. Even though I'm crossposting here please take the time to continue to visit me over at http://www.everestpoker.com/video/user/?d=799 and click on all my blog entries until this weekend when the contest is over. Thanks again for all your support.
Mike
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
LAPC Day 5
Hey I'm 6th/18 in LAPC Main Event heading into Day 5 with 987K chips. Just a spot for you to post your comments here since you can't afaik on Everest's site.
Mike
Mike
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