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

Sunday report

Tournaments: -(sum of all buy-ins/rebuys) (this is a lot)
Shortstacking 25/50 NL: +5500
5/10 NL 6-max: +500

I think I see a pattern.

Quick Sunday Report

Hey all, not much luck in the tournaments tonight. I final tabled the UB 100r again but finished either 7th or 8th, I forget. I also had one small cash. On the plus side cash games ahve been going really well lately. I've moved back up to 5/10 with good results so far, and I took another shot at shortstacking 25/50 NL on Stars this weekend. This time I actually ran good and made a quick $7500 in 200 hands. I don't plan to make a habit of this because the swings are ridiculous, but it's definitely profitable for me. I'm better off playing 5/10 though with a full stack and getting better at that. I'm basically planning to only play poker on weekends for a while because I have to get my thesis done this term and I'm behind where I need to be. I'm sure I will make exceptions for the occasional cash session when I need a break, or possibly playing tournaments one weeknight some weeks if things are going well with school. Finally, HUGE props to my buddy "gobboboy" for finishing 2nd in the Aussie Millions tournament in Melbourne for 1 million Australian dollars ($800K US). Also, congratulations to certain friends of mine who bought a nice piece of his action. OK I'm off, I'll probably keep doing the Sunday updates thing throughout the term, at least when something interesting happens.

Mike

Good night on UB

Other plans for the evening fell through, so I played some tournaments tonight. I ran well and won the 100r on UB for $7500, and finished 2nd in the 30r on UB for $3200. In the $30r I got heads up even in chips with my friend Adam Junglen, so we decided to just go all in blind and flip the coin for $2200 or so. He won the all-in on the river card and took down the tournament. I can't play as many tournaments as usual tomorrow because I have a basketball game at 4:30, but I'll play everything from 6:00 on, starting with the $535 tournament on Full Tilt.

Mike

PCA Trip Report: Part 2

One thing I forgot from yesterday. A guy that lives in residence with Mike won the Stars Million for $200K. So jealous. He's not even that experienced a player, though he played pretty well at the final table. There was another kid in the hotel lobby playing at that final table on his laptop, with like 75 people around him cheering him on. I was up in our hotel room with Aaron and Mike forming the 3 person ch0ppy fan club. He basically single-handedly took out the kid playing in the lobby, it was actually pretty funny how badly he outplayed him. It's kind of scary to think how good Mike and a few of his friends could get, because they're all super smart young kids.

Day 5

Today I got up and headed down to the poker room to play the $1000 tournament. The structure was pretty awful and I never really got many chips. However, Aaron was owning it from the very start and I was running around the room trying to watch how Steve and gobbo were doing, and also keeping an eye on Aaron. Steve and gobbo's day are pretty well covered elsewhere. They came up short finishing in the low 20s for like 30K or something.
For dinner we went to the buffet with aaronbeen, actionjeff, and some others. I'm pretty sure aaronbeen lost credit card roulette, though I don't remember mocking him so I might have days mixed up. The dinner buffet was good, and I basically tried almost everything. Also, Mike is a huge luckbox. He had already won like $2000 on the trip gambling on coinflips, and at dinner he added to that. He flipped jonlewis for $100 twice, splitting those flips. He then won 2 consecutive flips for $200, the next for $400, and another double or nothing for $800. Jon quit at this point down only $1600.
***
I ended up going to play the big nightly tournaments online, and went on a sick run in every tournament I was playing. Unfortunately I bubbled the $1000 tournament on Full Tilt and donked out of the $129 tournament on UB in 3rd place in spectacular fashion:

We're 3 handed. I've been playing pretty aggressively. The guy on my right has 320K and I have around 280K, and GB2005 has 150K on my left.

Hand 1: I'm in the SB and the button folds. Blinds are 4K/8k and I limp in with 86o. GB checks his BB. The flop comes K55 and I autobet 12K. GB quickly calls. Something about the timing of his call and the fact that I'd been very aggressive made me really think he was floating me with nothing here planning to try to take the pot away later, since I figured to have nothing either.
The turn was a Q, completing the rainbow. Going with my read I decided not to give up on the pot and bet 24K. Unfortunately, this might not have been the best way to fight for the pot, a checkraise all-in was probably a better plan. GB2005 went ahead and raised to 65K. My first instinct was that I still didn't really believe him, and I thought he was leaving himself room to fold if I pushed. My second thought was that pushing allin with 8-hi, no draw, here was completely suicidal, what the hell was I thinking. But I talked myself into going with my read and pushed him in for his last 65K. He instamucked and berated me in chat for "never being able to fold". I told him I had a big hand for some reason.

Hand 2: After the last hand I decided that I was, in fact, invincible. I raise to 24K with AQo and the other guy calls in his BB. The flop comes TTx. He checks and I continuation bet 30K. He min-checkraises to 60K. Unlike in the last hand where I had actual reasons to think he was bluffing, I randomly decided to call and take this pot away too. I finish the hand with like 50-60K in chips.

Hand 3: Folded to me in the SB and I autoshove 73o. GB beats me into the pot with 99. GG.

After donking out of my other tournaments I headed down to watch Aaron. There are 5 players left and he has the chiplead. The funny thing about Steve and Aaron, is that they play nothing like their personalities. Both are fairly quiet, unassuming guys. They're not the least bit cocky and they're both pretty nitty with the money they've made, and you might expect them to be similar at the table, playing a careful, tight style. But in reality, they are two of the LAGiest LAGtards ever when they play live. Aaron had to be raising at least 75% of the hands it was folded to him in any position. The players on his left simply did not know how to adjust and he was dominating the table. Unfortunately I brought my bad luck down to him and he finished 3rd for $20K, after taking a tough river beat, and losing a flip.
***
Day 6

This was by far the best day of the trip. Mike left this morning. Lol, that's only a small part of why though. The plan for today was to lie out in the sun all afternoon and get our burn on. But first, waterslides!! I'd never done the water slide thing before, so I had no idea what I was in for. So I get on the first one, and you actually get moving pretty fast! OK so that was fun! Now we go do the big one. Aaron warns me that I'll actually lose contact with the slide for a split second on this one. Hmm, ok that sounds fine. I was thinking maybe you'd go for a little bit and then there'd be this drop, because I couldn't actually see much without my glasses on. Well, no. As soon as you get moving there's a huge drop. And it's not a split second, I'd say I was off the slide for closer to a full second, and you get moving fast in a hurry. It definitely got the blood pumping, but was really fun, so we did that again and also the tube one before going to lie down in the sun all day. Unfortunately, by this time our beautiful sunny day had clouded over and it was spitting rain. On the plus side it was still early enough to go play the $1500 tournament, so we did that instead.
***
Unfortunately, I busted in the first level with KK vs AA but decided I wanted to play live more. I was trying to get a seat in the 5/10 NL game but it was full so I had to wait. As I was waiting they started a 10/20 NL game, so I figured why not, and got in on that one. Just as the game was about to start a seat opened at the 5/10 table, but the 10/20 game actually looked way softer so I decided to stay there. And what a game it was. 3-4 to every flop for a raise, and while most people seemed to know how to play fairly well postflop, there were a few that were complete maniacs. I ended up making $3K by winning a few small to medium sized pots along with this big one:

Hand 1: I'm UTG and and place a live straddle to 40 before looking at my cards. There is a raise to 125 and 2 callers before it gets back to me. I now look down and find KK, and make it 600 to go. The raiser folds but the first caller pushes me all-in for around $2000. I quickly call and say I hope it isn't happening for the 2nd time today, but he has 99 and my hand holds.

***
I find some other 2+2ers in the card room and learn that they've got a table for 12 booked at Nobu, the expensive Japanese/sushi place in the casino. Fortunately there were a couple extra seats, so Aaron and I could join them. To make things simple we all decided to get the chefs specialty 7 course meal at $150 a head. Throw in some sake and wine and we paid almost $200 each. The food was pretty good, and the service was actually fine (everyone else I've talked to complained the service was awful). Each of the 7 rounds was really small, but it added up to a satisfying meal. It definitely wasn't a $200-good meal though, I've had much fresher sushi in Toronto for example, but after running so good at credit card roulette we needed a big meal to knock some money off my room card anyways so that it wouldn't go to waste.

After the meal we got some more drinking in before heading to Senor Frogs, a bar in Nassau. We bumped into a few of the Ship it Holla Ballas on our way to find cabs, and instead we shared a limo with them. They're actually nice guys, people get the wrong idea from the awful name and their website, but they're just trying to have some fun and get some publicity. The night got even better when we arrived, as apparently several cruise ships were docked at Nassau that night, and the bar was packed. Not just of nerdy poker guys, but also some attractive ladies who weren't dating said poker players for a change. Lots of drinks, good reggae and hip hop playing, a (female) booty shaking contest up on the stage, and a bit of dancing. Not a bad night at all. After Senor Frogs closed we went to some other late night place and partied until around 5am. Great night.

Day 7
When I come to it's after 12:30 and we need to get cleaned up and head down to sign up for the $2500 tournament. I know it's going to be a rough day after last night, but I'm getting backed in the tournament, and I don't want to miss out on my last chance to make some money down here.
***
The tournament went a lot better today, but again I fell short of cashing. This is long as hell already so I'll go with the short version: AK vs TT aipf bingo A on river. AQ vs AA aipf turns broadway obv. I basically lost every other pot I played though and I wonder why I ever bother cont. betting the flop because I swear they raise me every time. Anyways I get moved to a new table and belowabove is on my right so I'm just waiting for a chance to reraise him. He opens on the button and I jam A3o from the SB. Unfortunately I don't have enough chips to get him to fold QTs and he decides to call and pwn me.
***
After this I went to the Stars closing cocktail party, but I didn't have it in me to drink anymore so I left early and went to a comedy show Steve + family, Aaron, and davidross + wife. I really enjoyed two of the three comedians, and even the guy in the middle wasn't bad. We say goodbye to some people and get our stuff ready to leave in the morning.

Day 8

Get up in time to go kill the last $50 on the room card at breakfast and get checked out by 11. Aaron leaves for his earlier flight and I'm on a flight with Steve and family at 3. The trip back is uneventful, Steve drops me home, and it was pretty awesome to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in a while over at the house for one of Dave's dinner parties. Maybe Waterloo isn't so bad.

Mike

PCA Trip Report: Part 1

I've tried to make this post more readable for non-poker players. There's a few terms explained at the bottom with a * next to them. Super poker-nerd content is separated by ***. The 2nd part will come shortly, I do a lot more fun non-poker stuff in that part.

Day 1

My flight in is uneventful, though I met a couple other poker players. I meet timex (Mike) and PacMann (Aaron) at the airport and cab it back to the hotel, those 2 guys are crashing in my room. In one of the e-mails from Stars they say a cab to Atlantis from the airport should cost around $25. But they don't have meters or anything in the cabs so it's basically negotiable. Being intelligent, we talk in the back about the usual high roller poker stuff the whole way. "That's $40 mon." Let the overpaying for everything begin. We get checked in and the room is fairly nice, basically exactly what I expected and very comparable to the room I had in Vegas. We check on 2+2* to find people and go downstairs and meet up with Junglen, exitonly, Jurollo, coxquinn, etc... to go grab food and drinks before the cocktail party. We check out the bar and grill in the casino. I try the local beer Kalik but it kinda sucks. For the bill we play credit card roulette (or in this case room card roulette since PokerStars credited $1150 to our room cards as part of the package), a pretty standard tradition when people who like to gamble too much grab a meal together. The game is very simple and avoids the hassle of splitting up the bill. It's best when everyone's meals are reasonably close in price so no one has a big edge. Everyone puts their roomcard in the middle, the cards are shuffled together, and you get the waitress to pick one card at random. The card picked pays for the entire meal. aaronbeen loses and I improve to 2-0 lifetime, with Aaron losing both those games (what a fish*).

Stars cocktail party is pretty awesome. I meet up with all the same 2+2ers and a ton more (way too many to try to name like I was going to). The bartender is mixing me 80:20 rum and cokes... Hang out with Steve and his family/gf for a bit with the rest of the Waterloo guys. Some people actually recognize Steve here. lol. (this is the tournament he won last year)
More 80:20 rum and cokes but they stop serving at 9 so I go find people to continue partying with (other day 1B guys). Meet up with aaronbeen, ActionJeff, and the rest of the GIFAFI guys. They've managed to score a ton of booze from one of the bartenders so we drink that. Once we finish that up we head back to the hotel bar and continue the partying.... Suffice it to say I don't remember the night that well and didn't feel great in the morning.

Day 2

The plan for today was to rest up and recover from the previous night's events, so I'd be ready to play Day 1B the next day. I just went out and laid in the sun all afternoon and drank some fruity energy drinks, then came in and played the supersatellite* to the main event to try to win $8000 (people who already had a seat in the tournament got $8000 instead of the seat) and get used to live play again. It was a $200 rebuy tournament so I ended up in for $600. I can't remember any specific hands, but it was fairly uneventful and I never got a hold of many chips and busted fairly early. I met up Jurollo and some othere 2+2ers after they finished their day and went to the Bar & Grill again for a late dinner. Credit card roulette is hilarious when Jurollo states from the very beginning of the meal that he'll almost certainly lose. We're all cheering for his card to be picked and sure enough, the waitress says "Justin!" and there's high fives all around. 3-0 lifetime I'm so good at this game. I ducked out after the meal when they went partying to get some sleep. Steve had an excellent first day in the main event finishing with around 75K, and another friend, Jimmy "gobboboy" Fricke, finished with 122K, among the chipleaders.

Day 3

I got up and went to the MarketPlace buffet with Aaron for breakfast before heading down to the poker room. I hadn't slept particularly well the night before but I was excited enough to get playing that it didn't really matter. I posted a report of Day 1 earlier so I won't rehash it here. In summary, I won a big pot early to get to 30K (we started with 20K chips) and then got whittled down to 16K by the end of the day. I went back to the room and grabbed some room service, then crashed for Day 2 of the tournament. Aaron went out fairly early today and him and Mike woke me up at 4am when they came back from the poker room. I hate them.

Day 4

Once again I woke up early and met Steve and his family (it's easier to just write this even though Natalie isn't family... yet) at MarketPlace for the buffet. I got down to the poker room early to find out where I was sitting. My table draw looked a lot better today, there were no names I recognized and no one had too many chips. There were a few guys who may have been big name online players but I didn't know their real names. My plan coming into the day was to move all-in over a middle position or late position raise the first chance I got regardless of my hole cards since my stack size was perfect so that I wasn't risking too much, but big enough that it would be really difficult for them to call me without a big hand.
***
Hand 1: 500/1000 a100. I'm on the button and it's folded to the guy on my right (I think he plays as CrazyMarco online) who makes it 3500. I decide this is a suspiciously large raise and I don't have enough fold equity to move in without a hand. However I find KK and move in, but he quickly folds.
Hand 2: Same level, I now have 20K. A guy raises in middle position to 3K. It's the first hand he's raised but he could easily have been card dead for the first couple orbits. I move in with AQ and he folds.
Hands 3/4: I get dealy KK and QQ and open raise but get no action :-(.
Hand 5: I get dealt 55 2 before the button and raise to 3K. Obviously I get a caller this time on the button. The flop comes K87 with 2 clubs and I contintuation bet 5K. He moves in and I fold. Sigh, back down to 17K where I started.
Hands >5: I move all-in a few times with not much to steal the blinds once an orbit until I do it with A6o and get called by AA. GG.
At some point in here the eventual winner, Ryan Daut, was moved to my table (I'm pretty sure it was him anyways). I saw him talking to some people I knew on break and introduced myself.
***
Being a poker addict I obviously go to grab my laptop but it's no longer in the room. I go find Mike and Aaron in the lobby already playing the big Sunday tournaments online, and of course Mike has mine. Despite being richer than all of us he still hasn't gotten around to buying a laptop that turns on in <5 minutes and has a working wireless card. The Coral Tower rooms most people were staying in don't have wireless internet, just one ethernet cable, though if you're smart you might bring a wireless router to hook that into. For this reason the lobby is generally crowded full of poker nerds on their laptops playing all sorts of games. I'm sitting at a table with Serge (adanthar), Aaron and Mike. It was cool to talk poker with adanthar for a bit because I really like his posts on 2+2 and I think we play a very similar style (though he probably plays it better). He was playing a $4K buy-in tournament on Cake Poker (I had never heard of it either), where there were only 11 players and first paid $22K and 1% of Cake Poker! The other 10 players all got in through promotions on the site and Serge was the only person to buy-in directly. So of course the other players were terrible and he absolutely destroyed the table (it was actually not that hard since 3 places got paid and the money obviously meant a lot to his opponents, so they played very weakly near the end to try to guarantee themselves some money and Serge just raised almost every hand and ran them over). So he now owns 1% of a poker site. Pretty cool stuff. As for my tournaments, I went really deep in the UB 200K but ran into overpairs a few too many times at the end and finished 21st for only $1100. At the end of the day Steve and Gobbo are still owning the main event. Steve is 2nd in chips with 400K, behind only ZeeJustin, and gobbo has a very healthy stack as well with ~290K I think.

Mike


supersatellite: A multi-table poker tournament where instead of the normal payout structure the prizes are seats in a bigger tournaments. In this case for $8000 in the prize pool one seat to the main event was awarded. So the top 14 players got seats and the tournament ends when only 14 players are left. This changes correct strategy drastically, especially near the end of the tournament.

2+2: The biggest/best poker book publishing company. They have an online poker strategy forum (linked on the right) where I post a fair bit. When I say 2+2er/2p2er I mean someone that posts on those forums, and I use screennames from there instead of real names a lot.

fish/donkey: A weak player. Donkey or "donk" can also be used as a verb or adjective to describe a poor play.

Newspaper Article

While I was home I did an interview for the local newspaper. The article appeared a few days ago. Here's the link:

http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=914&sc=2

I haven't had much time to write anything but I'll do a big trip report when I get back to Waterloo. I played the $1000, $1500, and $2500 tournaments here but no cashes. However I made $3K playing 10/20 NL live to get my money back. I played online a couple nights too and had a few very deep finishes including a 3rd in the new UB $129 bounty tournament. Other than that there has been lots of partying and meeting people. It's going to be weird going back to the real world.

Mike

Busto

I got as high as 26K after pushing over a couple raises but lost a pot to drop bacl to 17K. I pushbotted a bit to stay between 17K and 20K. On my bustout hand I was down to 17K at 600/1200 a200 (the 2nd level of the day) and shoved A6o from MP. I guess it's a marginal shove but I wanted to keep enough chips to push over a raise from the aggressive player on my right (and the antes are huge). So the guy on my left obviously wakes up with the aces and I somehow fail to suckout despite having 7% equity in the hand or something. Forunately I went out in time to play the Sunday tournaments online with the rest of the degenerates in the hotel lobby. WPT is so rigged.

Mike

PCA Day 1 Report

This report is probably going to suck because I didn't play any interesting hands today at all. i sit down and look at the list of names and recognize a lot more than I'd like. I'm in the 5 seat. The 1 seat is John Phan. The 2 seat is tnetter, who won the Stars yearly tournament leader board for 2006. 3 seat is some other young online player who is pretty good, and the 4 seat is Joe Pelton. 6 seat is Jason Sagle, who recently finished 2nd at WPT Niagara. The 7 seat was another younger guy who played pretty well, the 8 seat was a more aggressive player who was a bit of a call station at times but didn't play badly (and picked up a ton of hands to cover it up). The 9 seat was an aggressive young asian kid who got a little bit too far out of line a few times and was punished, but didn't really play badly. 10 seat was some weak-tight old guy. Not exactly my dream table.

We started with 20K chips and 50/100 blinds. As far as WPT events go I'm pretty sure the structure for this one was really bad. We played 50/100, 100/200, 100/200 a25, 200/400 a50, 300/600 a75 and 400/800 a100. My first and only interesting hand of the day occured early in level 1 when it was folded to Joe Pelton in the SB and he completed. I had A7o in the BB and made it 400 because that's how I roll. He called and we say a flop of 775 rainbow. He checked and I bet 600. He called and the turn came a 3. Again he checked and I bet 1250. This time he checkraised me to 3500 and I called. The turn came a 2 and he bet 6000. I just called and beat his T9o. Cool.

The next 5 and a half levels consisted of me never getting dealt any hands and occasionally stealing/restealing but getting reraised too often. Between John Phan and tnetter not many hands were getting folded to me so I started reraising them with air from time to time. At 300/600 I lost a decent % of my chips when it was folded to the online player in the 3 seat on the button and he made it 1800. He had been playing really tight but it was still a button raise and seemed like a good time to use his solid image to pick up a pot. I looked down to find AJo and made it 5600. After some deliberation he shoved 12K more and i had to fold despite getting 2:1. Oops. Shortly after this we reached 400/800 a100 and I had a bit under 15K which is a sweet stack size for restealing. So I randomly shoved over a tnetter raise with J9o, but didn't have any other good chances to try to lose all my chips and made it to the end of the level and day with 16,100.

John Phan finished the day with more chips than me despite being down to 450 chips really early (when the young asian kid didn't realize he was so short and just called Phan's river checkraise with a fullhouse instead of putting the last few chips in), and then again down to 2000 chips at 400/800 and being forced allin with J2o vs QQ in his BB. Anyways I'm going to have to double up early tomorrow or it will be a really short day for me. This seems to be a tougher field than most WPT events (day 1B in particular, 1A I heard about more soft tables). Hopefully tomorrow will go better, I'm still not really that far out of it.

Mike

Frustrating day but still alive

Joe Pelton bluffed off half his stack to me in a blind battle in level 1 when I flopped trips with top kicker and he tried to bluff me. So I quickly had over 30K but then everything went wrong and I slowly bled chips down finishing the day at 16.1K. The good news is at least I'm still in, but it was an incredibly frustrating day overall. My table was quite tough with no really bad fish and several strong players. I'll probably try to write a full report later tonight.

Mike

OMG LEAVING FOR BAHAMAS IN 3 HOURS!!11!!1!!

I'm sitting at home drinking a beer about to fire up a NL cash session to kill time. I have to be at the airport around 4am so there's no point trying to sleep. I fly from here to Toronto then down to Nassau after a 2 hour wait in TO. Get in around 1:15, about the same time as the two yahoos I've picked up as roommates (Aaron and Mike). From there it's a cab ride to the resort and the week in Paradise begins. PokerStars is throwing a cocktail party for the players at 7pm. Since I dont play until Day 1B (Saturday, Jan 6) I'm free to indulge in a few too many of said cocktails. Can't wait!!

Mike

2006: Year in Review

This is x-posted from the year end thread in MTT Community on 2+2.

I started the year with approximately an 8-9K bankroll, after losing 4K over Christmas when I moved up to $100+ tournaments for the first time and did poorly. I was not happy with my game and the "huge" downswing had hurt my confidence some. So I moved down to a lot of $22-$55 tournaments with occasional shots at the $100s. Unfortunately the year started very badly with a 3 month break even streak. I was playing a lot better again though and I knew it was just a matter of time until I broke out. My results in NL tournaments were terrible, with no top 3 finishes over the entire period (maybe one 2nd in a 20/180 or something small). However, I was killing limit holdem tournaments and the $22-$55 stud hi/low tournaments on Stars to stay even. These were small tournaments and I basically won one every week.

Finally, in April things started to turn around. I won a few small tournaments like 20/180s and got moving in the right direction. May was my breakout month. I finally started running good in NL tournaments and put up several 2K-5K scores. I also won my WSOP seat, my first ever big live event. At this point it was still kind of depressing that the WSOP package was worth twice as much as my largest cash, and an enormous % of my bankroll. However my roll was over $20K and I was playing all the big $150-$200 tournaments and even $100 rebuys on Dise and Stars when they had the bigger fields. At some point in here I had -10K week but then won $10K over a weekend. My introduction to real MTT variance. In July a few weeks before the WSOP I won the Stars $162 for $20K. Finally that huge breakthrough cash. I'd also started playing some NL cash with immediate success and that helped me really understand the game a lot better. I went to Vegas as confident as ever in my game.

Vegas got off to a slow start. I wasn't doing great in the cash games and I busted Day 1 of the WSOP after 12 hours of my chip count yoyoing when I made a fairly bad mistake. When in Vegas bankroll management goes out the window so I started playing a lot of the daily $1000 Bellagio Cup events. These things were incredibly soft so it seemed somewhat justifiable. On my 5th try I chopped one 6-handed with the chiplead for $44K (I wouldn't normally want to chop so early but for several reasons this was indredibly good for me).

I continued to do well when I got home playing a lot of 5/10 NL and big tournaments. But I couldn't stay on the good side of variance forever. I lost about 15 buy-ins at 5/10, several more trying out shortstacking the 25/50 games, and a whole lot more when I failed to cash a single tournament in the WCOOP and FTOPS, despite playing most events. In total it was a $40K downswing. Forunately, over the last 2 months I've made the money back and more. I moved down and killed 3/6 NL for about 6ptBB/100 over ~25K hands. My tournament results finally turned around this month with a couple wins on UB, and most recently I won a $100 rebuy on Stars for $23K to erase what was left of my downswing. I also won my PCA seat so I'm actually ahead since August now. Finally, on the last week of the year I cracked the Pocket Fives rankings.

Cliffs Notes:

-8K roll to start
- 4 month break even streak
- Make 5 figures plus WSOP seat in May
- Win stuper for 20K in July.
- Donk out of WSOP but chop $1K Bellagio Cup event for $44K.
- $40K downswing.
- Pwn 3/6 NL.
- Win PCA seat.
- Win $100 rebuy on Stars for $23K to get out of downswing.
- SirWatts ranked.

My biggest online score!

I got myself an early Christmas present tonight winning the $100 rebuy on Stars. I played pretty well (there were some tough spots I'm still not sure about), and got very lucky when I had to. It's a really good feeling when things go right near the end of a big tournament for once. First paid $23K. For anyone trying to keep track I am now out of my downswing and officially a winning player since I got home from Vegas in August. That's always a relief, though I could easily go on another huge losing streak now so I'll try not to get too happy about it. Here is probably my biggest key hand from the tournament. I walk into a huge cooler but draw out huge to vault into contention at the final table.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?682026

equity (%)
Hand 1: 42.1556 % { AhKh }
Hand 2: 05.4930 % { AdQs }
Hand 3: 52.3514 % { QcQh }

Anyways I'm not sure what else to say about this right now. I should easily be ranked in the top 100 online players on PocketFives now this week. It doesn't really mean much, but I can't lie a little recognition is nice sometimes considering the amount of effort I put into this silly game. I'm heading home for Christmas break this Friday and I'll be busy until then so you won't see me at the tables for a few days at least. I'd better get some sleep, I have to proctor then mark a final exam all day tomorrow. Back to the real world :-).

Mike

Selling some % of my PCA action

A few people asked me about this recently, here's what I've decided. The buy-in for the event is $8000, so I will sell 1% of my action for $100 (US), minimum purchase 1% up to whatever. I probably only want to sell 15-20% at most though, so first come first served, except I'll save a few % for people I've already talked to that expressed interest. E-mail me at miwatson17@hotmail.com if you're interested, or PM me on 2+2 (TheNewf) or CPF. I can probably arrange to meet people that I know in town, otherwise I can take transfers on most online sites (Stars in particular is easy).

Mike

Up and Down Week

I had some good scores this week, but I played a lot of tournaments so I didn't really do very well overall. Thursday night I won the 30r on UB for 6K, and on Saturday things were looking very promising as I was deep in the $320s on Stars and Party. I made the final table on Stars and was on the final table bubble on Party when things started going wrong. I took a tough beat on Party for a decent number of chips (but also made a small mistake that was probably quite costly), but battled back from my short stack to a respectable level, and then lost it all again on a hand I probably misplayed where I had A8 on an AKJ flop. I feel like I probably didn't have to get broke here, but my stack was short enough that it was awkward to find a fold, so I shoved it in and bubbled. On Stars, from two tables left and on, I basically lost every coinflip or better that would give me a lot of chips, but then won every hand I got all-in preflop once I became a shortstack, despite usually having the worst of it. I finally built up to 2nd/5 but then played a hand poorly against the chipleader and bluffed off 1/3 of my chips. Then I decided to lose more coinflips and bust 5th. $4300 is good and all, but first was 21K and even 2nd was easily 5 figures. Oh well.

The Sunday tournaments went badly again, and I lost tons of money as usual. On the plus side I'm happy with my play lately. I've been a lot smarter about picking my spots. I've got some extra tricks now I can use, but I'm not overdoing it like I was for a while. Talking to Steve today he basically said something that was exactly what I've been thinking lately about the higher buy-in tournaments, so I think I've definitely got the right idea with these adjustments. I'm confident I'll be on top of my game for the Bahamas, so if I can get lucky at the right times I just might make a run.

Mike

I win a poker tournament!

Finally! It took two outers on the river, winning all-in preflop with several dominated hands, and not tilting when my super passive opponents kept picking up monsters at all the wrong times for me, but I managed to luckbox my way to victory in the 3pm $18 rebuy (20K guaranteed) on Doyle's Room, for $8K. It was a relief to finally win something fairly big. I've had a lot of close calls lately (including a 4th in the 20 rebuy on Stars Friday night) so finally getting over the hump feels good. Not much luck in my other tournaments on the day though. I managed one small cash in the $163 tournament on Full Tilt, but got shutout everywhere else. Anways, it's definitely nice to make money on a Sunday for a change, I'm going to try to make a habit of it. I'm too tired to go into any details or talk about much strategy today, other than that I actually cut back on the resteals slightly today in marginal spots and I think that helps a bit, though it's obviously something that can't be analyzed just by looking at the reults of a few hands. Good night!

Mike

Awful Day

I played a million tournaments today and made the money in zero. The only one that was looking particularly proimising was the Stars million, but I blew off 80K chips in 2 hands 20 players from the bubble. Both hands involved resteals as usual, though the 2nd was perfectly standard and I just lost a flip. The first was at least slightly crazy but probably not bad overall, however I ran into a big hand. I have to be a little more selective still I think. It seems to me that ideally I should be making my moves earlier before they're expecting them. Once I'm short enough that I'm kinda desperate they're going to call more because they're getting better odds against my shorter stack and they know I have to make a move. It's obviously a very high variance play so I'm going to bust out on them a lot even when picking good situations, but I think I'm doing it a little too much. In particular, I need to stop shoving hands with marginal showdown value like Ax or KJ when it's otherwise a bad situation to resteal because having a few extra % against his range when called doesn't come anywhere close to making up for getting called every time, compared to having a weak hand but in a situation where he's going to fold a large % of the time. Once I get this all balanced I will be a tougher player then ever.

Edit: After consulting my databse and adding numbers in my head: 19 tournaments played, 0 cashes, $4220 in buy-ins. Thinly veiled brag post?

Mike

Every Sunday I lose thousands of dollars

OK every now and then I have a little luck on my side and make a decent score, but in these big field tournaments you're going to lose a lot more often than you win (but your wins occasionally be huge to make up for it). The only tournament I was really doing well in was the $150 8:00 tournament on Full Tilt where I was top 3 for quite a while, but I cooled off to drop back to the pack and then got rivered in a big pot where I was able to get a guy to put all his chips in with 5 outs on the flop. This was my only cash of the day.

Pocket Fives has their new tournament leaderboard up on their site now. It's based on the results of the biggest tournaments from all the main online sites. I've always liked these leaderboards, so getting a dececnt ranking on there will be added to my list of goals, though I definitely don't have the time to play enough to have any chance of competing with the best players. Oh, I finished 4th for $3k Saturday night in a $100 tournament on Full Tilt when I blew a huge chiplead 7 handed on the final table bubble (it was a 6-max tournament). I think I say this every week but I'm really going to have to look at reverting to a more conservative style. More players seem to have figured out how to adjust to the loose aggressive players properly, at least at the higher stakes. At the very least I need to pick my spots more carefully and recognize when to switch gears. There are too many times when I know someone is very likely going to reraise me if I steal or call if I reraise them but I go ahead and make my default play instead of adjusting to the specific situation. When I'm playing well I tend to have a good feel for the flow of the game and I know when people are likely to make certain plays before they do, but I don't use or trust this information enough a lot of the time.

Mike

A couple decent scores

I finished 3rd in the 30r on UB for $2300 and 3rd in the 22r on Stars for $5K last night. I should probably try winning some of these 4-figure in EV coinflips 3 handed next time. Still a pretty good night!

Mike

Attention Grabbing Blog Entry Title

Wow what a roller coaster weekend. This picture should explain what I mean:

The hands on Friday and Saturday went pretty terribly, but as the picture shows, Sunday went more than a little well. At one point I had over $5800 on one table (the most you can buy-in for is $600 but profit stays on the table). I made $6300 on the day for 10.5 buy-ins. Awesome hands include the following:

How not to play AA (my flop call is pretty marginal but I know what he has and I'm pretty sure I can bust him if I get lucky, so the price is about right)

Set over set

Set over bluff

Straight Flush!

Of course I also played a lot of tournaments and despite building several promising stacks I only managed a few small cashes, so I lost a bit back from those. Still, what a sick rush it was. Also, since as a math guy I love these graphs, here's an extra BBV-style commented graph of all holdem hands from all limits in my database, before this weekend.

Mike

Bahamas!

I won my seat in the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure (WPT event) at the Atlantis resort in Bahamas today. I played the $650 supersatellite and after some stressful hours where the shortstacks refused to bust I managed to squeak into one of the last spots. A guy at my table sat out thinking he could fold his way in I guess (or maybe connection problem or something), but he miscalculated slightly. He was sitting out about to blind off in two hands, 19 people were left with 18 receiving seats, so I got to make one of the more interesting folds in poker:

Pocket aces go in the muck

I'll be down there Jan. 4-11. The $12K package includes the $8K buy-in, $1K for travel expense, and the other $3K covers hotel, meals, etc... from what I understand Pokerstars takes care of its satellite winners pretty well at the event. Also, I finished 2nd in a 150+13 tournament on Full Tilt for $7600, so I have some extra money to donk off down there. Maybe I'll write more of a report about these tournaments later if I have the time but I'm gonna call it a night now. Woot!

Mike

More Niagara and Sunday Report

I went back to Niagara Friday morning with Steve and Aaron to hang out, sweat Steve, and play some poker. Steve ran pretty bad on Friday, getting sucked out on several times all-in with the best of it, but was still doing pretty well when he got all-in with AA vs QQ 3 players from the money for a 1.5x average stack and lost. I hung out with gobbo, AaronBeen, and Mike some more on Saturday then came home late last night. Today I played a bunch of tournaments and was doing fairly well, but fell short again. I lost a flip for ten times the starting stack on Stars in the million to bust before the money. UB I lost AK vs KQ for about 7 times starting stack and on Full Tilt I lost A4s vs JTo and then KQs vs A6o to bust 22/1700+. So close. On the plus side I'm still running incredibly good at 3/6 NL. I'm gonna keep this one short and get to bed. Night,

Mike

Niagara Trip Report

I got a ride with Steve and Aaron up to Fallsview Casino Tuesday night. The plan was to play one last live satellite and try to qualify for the WPT, and if that didn't work then just hang and play cash games. We arrive around 8 and meet up with gobboboy (who won the UB 200K guarnateed on Sunday for 45K), AaronBeen, and Ansky near the poker room. After grabbing some food with those guys Steve, Aaron, and I got in a $1200 satellite for the WPT. I didn't really want both those guys at my table but Steve got moved to fill the last seat in another satellite, and got to play against fellow Team Pokerstars member Barry Greenstein.

My table basically consisted of a bunch of bad and/or weak-tight players, plus myself, and Aaron sitting on my right. We started with 2500 chips and I got off to a hot start flopping TPTK to win a decent pot, along with a few other small ones. Then I won a huge pot when I flopped a set of 9s out of the SB in a multiway limped pot on Q97 flop. I manged to get all-in on the flop against AQ and a shortstack with 86 to move to around 9K in chips. Once we reached the 100/200 a25 level Aaron was opening a ton of pots and I was opening almost every one that he folded, and occasionally reraising him. Unforunately things started to go wrong for me around here. I raised preflop and cont. bet an A-hi flop only to get raised and fold. Then I lost a flip in a 6K pot against one of the tighties when my blind steal with QT got pushed on by 66 and I called getting around 2:1. Another cont. bet into an A-hi flop getting pushed on later and I was down to around 3K, well in last place with only myself, tighty (who kept picking up monsters), and Aaron left. I shove K2o on the button at 200/400 a75 and get called by tighty in the SB who shows AT. He flops a bunch of tens and I'm out. Aaron ended up making a deal HU where the other guy got the seat but paid him a few grand. As usual, Steve was luckboxing along nicely (his 64 beat JJ AIPF) and made it heads up against Barry Greenstein a bit behind in chips. Unfortunately they both flopped top pair, but Barry had the better kicker to bust him.

The play was so bad in my satellite and I really wanted to play the WPT so I decided to get on the list for another. In the mean time I ran into gobbo and he talked me into playing 25/50 limit holdem wih him while I was waiting since the game looked good and it was the only thing with no waiting list. I got dealt aces a couple times and flopped top pair a couple more to end up leaving the game ahead 600. After about an hour though all the weak spots had left and the game consisted of like 6 2+2ers (including Josh. and his friend next to me who I talked to a bit) so I got up. Perfect timing as my satellite was starting so I got in.

In this one I got off to a bad start and never was dealt any hands but I hung in there and stole some pots to keep afolat. There was a lot more action in this satellite, in and between pots. On the very first hand, an older guy won a pretty big pot off a younger kid when older guy obviously had a premium pair and young guy lost half his chips before folding his overpair TT face up to the turn push. Older guy eventually told him he made a good fold and then Indian kid flipped out for no reason and started cussing the guy out right to his face. The old guy got right back in his face and security had to come by to pull them away from each other and tell them to stop yelling at each other. It was so retarded. I believe the kid's logic was that if the older guy was going to tell him he had him beat then he should have also showed his hand, and that telling him but not showing the hand was bad poker etiquette. Obviously this was completely absurd and only makes him look like more an idiot than trying to get in a fight with someone over a hand of poker already did. Fortunately the young kid busted quickly and civility was restored. Anyways nothing particularly interesting happened in hands I played and long story short I get dealt K2o on the button shortstacked again, go all-in, and lose to fairly solid young guy who had all the chips in the BB with 44. Stupid king-deuce.

At this point it was like 4am and I had decided I was not going to sleep and just play a lot of poker. The next ~14 hours were spent playing 5/10 NL. I was up as much as 1200 but was a bit unlucky to only finish up 100. There are three interesting hands I can recall.

There is a huge call station fish who was been hitting everything and is up quite a bit. He limps in late position as does the SB and I check my BB with K4o. The flop is T83 and gets checked around. The river is a 5, the SB checks, I figure no one has anything and bet 20 trying to win it right there, but call station quickly calls and the SB folds. The turn is an A and I check. Call station hesitates and thinks for a second, then bets 30. In general he had been playing pretty quickly. Something seemed not quite right here. If he had a pair on the flop I don't think he would have checked it through, and I don't think he'd be value betting a weak pair here (though it's possible because he obviously doesn't think about these things the same way a good player would and I'd seen him make some weird bets). Also, on the turn there are a lot of open-ended or gutshot straight draws and he would probably call my bet with any of these (definitely the open enders and maybe the gutshots). None of them can win a showdown so "the only way for him to win here is to bet", as Mike Sexton says 8 million times per WPT episode. The pot is offering over 3:1 on a call so I only need to be right 25% of the time to show a profit if I call. So, after all this analysis; the possible physical tell, the hand reading, and the pot odds, king high isn't looking so bad anymore so I go ahead and call. He flips over the 64 and I get to table my monster and rake in the pot. I heard some of the other players mutter "wow that's sick a read" or similar things, but really the physical tell is a very small part of it, the hand reading and pot odds are the most important aspects.

Hand 2: I have been raising a lot of pots and playing pretty aggressive because the table was 6 handed at the time and I wanted to get rid of my supertight image due to card deadness, and beause other people were playing pretty tight. This time I find AKs and raise to 40, and get called by a player on my left who seems to play pretty well (solid TAG style). The flop is 663 and I check because my hand has some showdown value and I figure he will play fairly predictably. He checks behind and the turn is a 9. Again we both check and the river is a T. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a pair either unless he just caught a pair of tens (and I don't think he calls my raise preflop with many hands containing a ten) so I likely have the best hand, and given that I've been playing pretty loose he might not give me credit for anything here and call with a worse hand thinking I'm just trying to steal it since he checked back twice. I bet 60 for value (or hoping he folds the same hand as me). He hums and haws wondering if i have AT and just caught a pair but eventually calls and mucks what was probably AQ. Value betting ace-high in a no-limit game is definitely a good feeling when it works, though there aren't many situations where it's a good idea to do it.

Hand 3: Random guy UTG doubles to 20. In this game these raises almost always seem to be pot builders with marginal hands so when I find AK in MP I go ahead and make it 80. The BB, who has been playing very tight, cold calls the 80 and UTG folds. Flop K82 rainbow UTG leads for 200, and has a bit over 300 left. I think and fold. I just couldn't figure out any reasonable hand he can have here that I beat. Given what I'd seen of his play I couldn't see him calling with KQ or KJ preflop and even if he did the flop bet doesn't make any sense. Maybe he has QQ or JJ but again the flop bet doesn't make sesne. When tight live players fire out huge bets I tend to believe them. So I figure his most likely hand is AK, but there's also a good chance he could have AA, since he may not reraise preflop because when he puts in the 4th bet preflop it's going to be obvious that he has a monster, so calling disguises his hand a bit. It's certainly also possible that he has 88 or 22 and called hoping to flop a set and bust me, though he didn't have that much money behind so they're less likely. Putting in another $500 hoping to chop and win half the $185 already in there preflop when I could easily be drawing to 2 outs or less didn't seem like a great idea so I just folded. Maybe I gave him too much credit here, but I think the fold is best.

So when my 24 hours of poker marathon ended I went to see how Steve and Aaron were doing in the WPT event. Steve had like 40K and Aaron 70K (starting stack 20K) but their fortunes quickly reversed. Aaron lost huge pot with QQ when someone flopped a flush on him and he didn't get away, and eventually was busted by Juanda when he restole preflop with K9 and ended up getting it in after a 985 flop against Juanda's marginal preflop call with 76s. Steve had AA vs KK to get to over 65K and then TT vs 88 on a T85 flop against the chipleader to get a huge stack and take the chiplead himself. Juanda continued on his rush and finished the day with around 173K though apparently, but Steve finished 3rd on the day with 144.6K. Today is the second day 1 and he plays again on Friday. We drove back this morning for school and stuff but I'm heading back out there with him tomorrow morning to sweat him a bit, play some more live poker, and hang out with whoever else we know that's still there. Live poker can be incredibly boring though (too slow, too few tables) so I'm not sure how much of that I'm going actually going to want to play after already putting in a 24hr session yesterday. Anyways wish Steve luck, he has his day 1 report posted on his blog now if you want to read about what a crazy luckbox he is.

Mike

Not quite luckbox enough

Hooray! Today was Sunday so I played lots of poker. It was a pretty good day but again I came a bit short from the big score. I cashed the 215 on on Full Tilt and the 100r on Stars. The 100r was my last tournament of the day and I was running a little bit insane: 56 beats A6, 53 beats A9, Q2 beats 55, AT beats AQ, A2 beats JJ. Yeah, I'm a luckbox. I didn't actually get dealt any real hands though so I was only average stack with 16 left. It was folded to a good aggressive player on the button who had 120K, and raised 3xBB to 24K. I'm in the SB with 155K holding A3 and reraise, then am committed to call his push. He has the QQ and somehow I fail to hit my guthot+overcard on the river (rigged). Seems like a pretty obvious resteal spot but I ran into a big hand, damn. I seriously need to stop busting with two tables left this is getting ridiculous. On the plus side I also made a grand at 3/6 NL 6-max. Woot.


I think I've learned to adapt to the 6-max game pretty well, but my main leak seems to be occasionally just having a brain cramp and refusing to fold hands that are fairly clearly beat. I make good laydowns usually but every now and then I just decide not to drop a hand like TPTK or an overpair when it's clear my opponent has one pair beat. There are times to make stands with these hands but I'm talking about situations where my instincts are saying I'm beat, as well as the action. I'll need to tighten this up a bit or it'll really start to show in my results when I stop running so hot. I'm going to Niagara on Tuesday. It turns out that UB invented this supersatellite and it doesn't actually exist (wtf?), so I'll take a shot at one of the 1200 single tables and if that doesn't work I'll probably just play a bunch of cash games. Last chance if anyone out there wants to volunteer to stake me!

Mike

Sunday just isn't the same

No Party Million and no Dise 150K were the major differences. Since Bush signed the bill into law on Friday the online poker world has changed. Party seems to be surviving at least, but they've moved around their entire tournament schedule to try to cater to European players more, so their big tournaments are at different times than everyone else. Dise looks to be almost dead, despite the fact that most Americans are still allowed to play there (but they can no longer deposit). As far as I can tell the only tournaments left worth playing are their flagship 30+rebuys at 3 and 9, but even those have had their guarantees cut in half. However, the other main sites I play tournaments on seem to be doing fine. UB had a small overlay in the 200K guaranteed and full tilt got over 1000 players for their monthly $530 Sunday tournament. Stars had record attendance for their Sunday Million (over 6100 players) and will surely gain the most from Party dropping out. Hopefully the Party cash game fish get over their soon though because despite the fact that I've been killing the 600 NL games lately they're not exactly soft (I've just been running good), usually with 4-5 regulars at every 6-max table.

Speaking of which, I posted a hand on 2+2 and my opponent happened to see the thread and posted the results from his perspective. Basically, he pulled a sick bluff and owned me as badly as I've ever been owned. Pleeease Party fish hurry and get on Pokerstars. The 600 NL 6-max games need you. I have KThh in this hand:

So owned

In the thread he said he thought I folded bottom set. Yes, he knowingly tried to bluff me off of bottom set. People aren't supposed to be doing this stuff at 600NL. Also, I didn't play the hand very well. I was trying to mix up my play by checkraising without a monster for once and yeah, it got me in to lots of trouble. Still, I need to find some way to mix up my play here. I can't have my good opponents folding one pair hands every time I show strength on the flop, or I need to exploit it if they do. NL cash games are so complicated against good players.

Oh yeah as for tournaments I cashed the UB 200K and Full Tilt 500K. I was 4/90 when we made the money on UBafter running the table over on the bubble but two unfortunate hands later I was on the rail with TT running into KK and AQ meeting QQ. ON Full Tilt I was pretty shortstacked in the money and got a resteal snapped off to bust. I might have to ease up on the restealing. I really want to play WPT Niagara, but I've done terribly in almost every satellite I've played. If I actually manage to win a seat now I'll have barely saved any money over just paying the buy-in directly. Apparently they're running a supersattellite next Tuesday so Steve and I are probably going to go up there to play it.That'll likely be my only other shot at this one. Anyways I'm off for now. Later,

Mike

Closing the Gap

As a rule of thumb when I say I'm taking a break from poker on here I actually mean that I know I *should* take a break, but I rarely get away from the game completely. I've been sneaking in some poker at night and the results have been very positive. I played some turbo single table tournaments on Stars (a mix of the 60s, 114s, and 225s) and ran hot, then on Wednesday I played in the 20/180 challenge organized on 2+2. What ended up happening is 21 people (all people who post in the MTT forum on 2+2) each wagered $160 on who would have the best results over 5 consecutive $22 180-man SNGs on Stars based on a point system rewarding how long you last in each. I was chip leader with 25 left in 2 of them and mananged a 2nd place in one of those to vault me into 1st place in the sidebet. The tournament only paid $720 for 2nd but I won over $2600 (80% of the pot) on the sidebet.

I've also played about 3000 hands of $600 NL (6-max tables) cash games and am up over $4K, running extremely hot. There have been some really bad players at these tables and I've started flopping some monsters again, and I'm actually getting some action when I do. This combination was basically never happening on my cash game downswing. Moving down against worse players defnitely makes a difference since they give me more action with weaker hands but it's about time I started flopping more hands that I can play big pots with. I've also made a few good laydowns. I folded trips with a weak kicker once when I knew I had to be up against a full house (I didn't even have to think about this fold) and bottom set another time when I figured I had to be up against a bigger set or a straight (35J7 board). Both hands were 3-way pots which made the laydowns easier and I got to confirm that I was right since the other player called down both times. Understanding how/when to control pot size and recognizing when you need to be able to fold a strong hand are probably the 2 key skills in these mid-limit games.

Anyways I've grinded my way back up to only about 30K from my peak a few months ago. I won't be playing tournaments this weekend because I'm doing the family thing for Thanksgving but hopefully I can continue to chop away at my downswing if I have time to play next week.

Mike

WCOOP #18: $2600 NL Main Event

Over 2500 players played this thing for a prize pool over 6.25 million. First was more than 1.1 million. I got pwned. I had a great table draw, there were several very weak players at my table and no one I recognized. I went up and down between 10K and 15K (we started with 10K chips) for the first few hours and then I eventually won a few pots and stole some blinds to get over 25K. I continued going up and down for a bit until I was back down to 18K or so and raised 3xBB to 4500 with AA. The BB called. The flop came J33 and he checks to me and I check behind. The slowplay might be suspicious to some players but this guy was just pretty bad and I wanted to make sure to give him every chance to get his money in against me here. The turn was a blank and he shoved so I instacalled. He had the KJ so my slowplay didn't matter anyways, and he's drawing to 2 outs.

I didn't do much in the other tournaments I was playing either, busting just before the final table again in a 100r on Dise for my only cash. I've probably done that 3 times in the last few weeks and only made one final table in these (a 5th). I'm not sure what the plan will be to rebuild from here, but it will probably involve some sort of break from poker for a week or 2 at least. I hit the 40K mark today and I only have about 10K left in my online accounts now. I could reload some from what I've cashed out and won playing live but I'm really not happy it'd have come to that. Sadly, playing these big field tournaments the variance really is that sick. On the other hand I'm really not thrilled with the idea of moving way down in limits since it feels like I'd be giving away so much in EV when I still have more than enough money back to cover playing higher if I need it. I'll figure sometihng out. Oh well, I guess I'm not going to have a whole lot of time for this silly game for the rest of the year anyways.

Mike