Random WSOP ME Thoughts

One of the better players at the Final Table won (even if he did have to suckout a ton to win)

Bax/Sheets run good.

The people that take the Luck side of the Luck vs. Skill argument where given some ammunition.

ESPN did a great job of editing the FT in such a short time.
- I'm glad they added an additional 30 mins to the coverage for the heads up portion.

- My biggest complaint of their coverage is how quick they rushed things after Ivey busted out. At 10:50, there were 4 players remaining. By 11:00, they showed two bust outs and two commercial breaks.

- I really wish ESPN would sell a DVD set of the entire Final Table with whole cards. They could dub the Bluff Radio coverage over the top of the footage that doesn't have Norm/Lon commentary.

Next time you see one of those posts where someone is complaining about online poker being rigged because their opponent flopped a set against them or hit a 3-5 outer on the river, remember some of these hands. Live poker is so rigged.

Saout must have been playing really tight and staying out of Ivey's way for Ivey to let go of those Jacks preflop when he was so short.

How long is Kevin Schaffel going to be having nightmares of his AA losing to KK?

How do you get all in preflop as the biggest stack against the 2nd biggest stack with AQ?

How do you get all in preflop with 22 against a very solid player for 40BBs?

Every time I started feeling like Darvin Moon was a decent player trying (a little too hard) to portray the "I'm the worst player here image," he would do something really stupid.

- I can understand his logic for trying to bluff people out of pots, but I don't understand his thinking with KQ. I also don't understand why he lied to his family about what he had (QQ instead of KQ). Maybe he was too embarrassed? I did enjoy his reasoning for why he would have folded QQ there getting 1,000,000,000 to 1 pot odds to call.

- The not calling with KQ will probably be talked about for a while, but I think his QJ hand was a bigger mistake. How does he call off his entire stack heads up with QJo? He still would have had plenty of chips if he folded. I know that once the hands were turned up it was the correct call, but he couldn't have known that he was against an underpair.

I think non-poker players probably enjoyed the coverage. I played in golf tourney on Monday. A couple of non-poker players started talking about the WSOP ME. One guy immediately said, "Don't tell me who won. I'm going to watch tomorrow night and I don't want to know who won." He doesn't gamble or play poker, so I was a little surprised how into the WSOP he was.

Goodbye, 2009 WSOP. Time to start planning for the 2010 WSOP. I have the itch to play in the 2010 Main Event now.

New Orleans Questions

I am getting one small benefit of the poor economy - severely discounted vacations. As recent as a year ago, the only offers that I ever received from Harrahs were for free nights in Las Vegas during the week and reduced/free nights during the WSOP. I guess Harrahs started getting desperate to fill up their hotels around the country, because I started receiving weekly (sometimes 6-8 per month) free/reduced air/hotel offers to various Harrahs properties around the country. A couple of months ago, my wife and I decided to book one of their offers to New Orleans. Airfare for me and my wife, transfers to/from Harrahs New Orleans, and four nights (Thurs-Sun) all for $198 total.

We don't head out until later in the month, but I am starting to try to figure out the best places to eat, drink, play poker, etc, etc. We haven't been to NO in 9-10 years.

Hopefully, some of you have been there more recently.

Where is the best place to play poker? Harrahs? Are there even any other places?

Do they run any daily/weekly mtts?

What limits usually run?

Any suggestions on bars/restaurants/things to do?

October Results

My plan for October was to try to get back on track. I decided to really focus on my game and try plugging as many leaks as possible from major leaks all the way down to the minor leaks. I played mostly 50NLHE/PLHE during October with a sprinkling of 100NL mixed in (usually on the weekends). I also wound up playing more live poker than usual this month.

Online Cash Games = $+1,018.95 (avg of 3.30 ptbb/100)
Online Tourneys/SNGs = -$3.20
Rakeback = +$439 (including 2 a day bonus from Sept)
Live Poker = +$560
Staking = -$26

Total Online = $1,428.75
Total Live = $560
Overall Total = $1988.75

Biggest Winning Day of the Month = $562 (all at 50NL)
Biggest Losing Day of the Month = -$229 (all at 50PL)



Overall, I feel pretty good about my play this month. I actually lost 3 buy-ins at 100NL, and still finished up decent for the stakes that I played. I had a little trouble adjusting to 50NL at the beginning of the month, but think that I eventually made the correct adjustments. I still have some leaks, but at least I have identified them and am doing my best to avoid them.

My biggest leak by far is playing after being out drinking. Almost all of my biggest losing sessions this month were after a night out. I remember one night specifically this month. I went to a professional organization meeting after work that included several beers. I made it home around 10 PM. It was a Tuesday night, so I fired up the WSOP on the DVR. I had decided that I wasn't going to play since I had been drinking. About 30 minutes later I decided to fire up the laptop, convincing myself that I was just going to play long enough to get 200 FTPs for the day. I wound up turning the computer off 3 hours later down 4 buy-ins.

My second biggest leak is playing when I shouldn't be playing. I am doing much better with this one. A good example is this past Saturday night (Halloween and FL/GA football game day). I drank a few beers while watching the Gators stomp the Bulldogs. I switched to water towards the end of the game. Once it started getting dark we took the kids trick-or-treating. Several hours later we got the kids to bed. I was sober, but exhausted. I was still tempted to play some online poker, but forced myself to not to. Yeah me!!!

I am going to continue to play mainly 50NL/PL for at least the next week or two before hopefully switching to mainly 100NL.

Good luck to everyone in November.

Biloxi Trip Report - Thoughts on a couple of hands

FRIDAY

My wife and I made a quick trip to Biloxi this weekend for our anniversary (9th one - just like another blogger) thanks to a cheap air/hotel offer from Harrahs. (I guess those Rio table game hours are paying me back a little.) The offer gave us the option of leaving from Tampa or Jacksonville. My Mom lives in Jax and agreed to watch the kids, so Jax it was.

I felt a little sketchy heading to the airport Friday morning. We had no tickets, emails, or letters showing that we had reservations. I had expressed my concern about this a week prior to one of the Total Rewards reps and she said, "No worries. Just go up to the Continental counter with your IDs. They will give you the tickets." Amazingly, we arrived at the airport and the lady behind the counter gave us our Continental Express tickets. She also charged us $20 for a checked bag - guess we should have taken two carry-ons instead of one big suitcase.

The flight was pretty quick. We landed, picked up our suitcase, boarded the shuttle to the hotel, and were in our room at the Grand Biloxi in few short hours later.

After showering and changing, we headed down to check out the casino. No poker room. I knew that going in, but it obviously wouldn't have been my first choice of places to stay since there was no poker room and the casinos with poker rooms were about 2 miles away. I did LOL at the people playing the table games. The Grand Biloxi was running a promotion - play 30 minutes and get a free buffet. Of course we sat (at a roulette table) to grind out our free buffet. During our 30 minutes at the table, I heard two people ask the pit boss if they had been there for 30 mins yet. We left the table when my $100 buy-in was gone (about 35 mins). My wife had doubled her $100, so we broke even plus two free buffets. Wooohoooo!!! :)

The Grand Biloxi had one good thing going for them that helped make up for the lack of a poker room - free limo service even if you were heading to their competitor's casino. Not too shabby. It was the same cost as a cab after tipping the driver. After grinding out our free buffet, we took the limo to the Beau Rivage.

The Beau Rivage was much shorter than I imaged from pictures that you see online. I called it the Mini-Bellagio because the casino was like a miniature version of the Bellagio - same fonts on the signs, similar chips, similar finishes, etc - only with less stuff. We basically checked out the mini-B to get our bearings, grabbed a drink at the bar and then headed next door to the Hard Rock.

I was pretty impressed by the Hard Rock casino. My wife was going to head to the Rick Springfield concert while I played some poker in their very very small poker room. The room had probably 6-8 tables, but there was only one running when I arrived. We managed to get a second 1/2 NL uncapped game going about 30 minutes later. The table was full of nits, especially for a live low limit no limit game. No joke. I saw several hands that wound up with chopped blinds when the table was full and a ton more that consisted of raise to $5, fold around. I managed to stack someone for $100 with AQ against their KK on a Q high flop, Ace turn.

About 45 minutes later the poker room manager thankfully moved me to a seat at the other game running. It was so much juicier. There were at least two really soft spots with a lot of money on the table. I saw a donk chase a flush with horrible odds all the way to the river. He overbet the pot on the river when he obviously hit and was called by top two. (Top two later proved to be one of the better players at the table, so there must have been some history for him to make the call.)

I won a few big pots. One against the donk when I had about $375-$400 in front of me. He had about $1k. (I was really kicking myself for not buying in deeper.)

Two limpers.
I raise to $7 from mid position with AQo.
Donk otb calls. BB calls. Two limpers call.

Flop is TJKr. Bingo!! Now, how do I extract as much as possible from the donk.

Checks to me. I bet $20. Donk and BB call. Two limpers fold.

Turn is a blank.
BB checks. I bet $75. Donk makes it $275. BB folds. I shove. donk calls with KT. River blank. Just like that I'm up to $850ish from my starting stack of $200.

I run it up to as high as $1,050 before leaving with $800 (+$600) in about 3 hours of play.

The Rick Springfield concert was over pretty quick. It started at 8 PM (doors opened at 6:30) and the women (and a few poor men that were dragged to the concert) started filing out of the concert hall around 9:30.

The guys at the poker table started talking about the concert. I sat there and just listened for a little while until one of them said, "There are a lot of 40 year old guys that are going to get laid tonight."

I jokingly replied, "Hey! My wife went to that concert.....but I'm not 40 yet."

Less than 30 seconds later my wife walked up to the table. :)

We had some drinks at the bar with a few people that she met at the concert before heading back to our hotel.

SATURDAY

Saturday was a great sleep in day. It has been a while since I've slept in that late. We had a late lunch at the crappy Grand Biloxi Buffet. If I had know how bad the buffet was, I don't think that I would have grinded out the free buffet.

The rest of the day consisted of playing poker at the mini-Bellagio (Beau Rivage) while my wife relaxed, followed by watching the Gator Game and some more late night poker.

I had some ups and downs at the poker table playing 2/5 NL and wound up down $800 for the day thanks in part to a couple of hands. One I played poorly and one I don't think I should have played differently.

Poorly played hand

I was on the button with 8h2h (around $400 stack - hadn't topped off after bleeding down a little). The entire table limped to me, so I called also - mistake #1.

BB raised to $20. He only loses 3 players, so I decide to call again - mistake #2.
SB calls.

Flop (Pot - $155) - Flop 88T

BB checks. Mid position bets $60. I decided to just call. SB thinks for a minute and calls. I really didn't like the SB calling since he was playing 100% of his hands preflop and giving up after a lot of flops.

Turn (Pot - $335) - Ax

SB checks. MP bets $80. I just called - didn't really like this, but I had gotten too deep into the hand and the pot was too large relative to my remaining stack. SB shoved. MP folded. I really knew that I was behind but the pot was now $575 + $250ish ($825). I had to call $250 to win $825. I can't fold here even though I'm fairly certain that I'm beat. Can anyone make the case for folding? I don't think so because there are too many river cards that could result in chops against his range of random 8x hands. There is even a possibility of the pot currently being a chop of the outside shot of him having something like AT.

I reluctantly called. He had K8. I didn't improve on river.

Top pair and Flush draw - no reads on player

The next big hand that I lost was literally my very first hand after being moved to a new table late Saturday night. (Our table had just broke after a couple of players decided to call it a night.)

I was in Seat 10 in the cutoff. Two limpers. I limped along with 9h7h.

The button (Seat 1 with around $550) raises to $20. Both limpers call. I call.

Flop - 9x6h4h.

Checks around to button. He bets $75. Fold back to me.

I raise to $275. - Thoughts on the size of this bet?

Button thinks for quite a while and finally shoves for a little less than $300 more. I call and don't improve. He turns over TT for the win.

I don't mind getting all the money in on the flop in that spot. Any thoughts on playing this differently?

A little while later, I left the Mini-B down $800 at poker for the day.

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All and all, I had a great time despite being up $900 overall at one point and leaving down $100. I don't think that I would recommend Biloxi for a vacation unless it was to someone within driving distance that was looking for a weekend get-a-way just to gamble. There wasn't much else to do there. The casinos where relatively small, but had that small local feel to them plus the southern hospitality.

50NL Adjustments

I have been playing a lot of 50nl and 50pl full ring since the beginning of the month. There was definitely a learning curve when I first started playing these limits, but I am doing well now that I have made some adjustments based on the players. There are quite a few differences from 50nl and 200nl. Below are some of the major differences I have run across:

1. Nit runs rampant - Table selection can be difficult at times. I usually wind up only wait listing for deep stack tables since a lot of the regular tables are full of short stackers. There are times where all the tables are full of 8/6s to 14/10s. It would be easy to laydown KK pf to some of these guys. I have found myself leaving tables a lot more often than I used to.

2. Loose passive calling stations - On the flip side of nits running rampant, I was surprised how many 50/8 type players you find. They come in different varieties but generally call any pf raise or 3 bet with any two cards. The majority of these players either fold to c-bets on the flop, call when they are chasing a draw, or re-raise on the flop when they flop a monster. They are very predictable and very easy to play against.

The minority of these type players take more adjustments. They are the loose passive players that call any raise with atc pf, but have a fold to c-bet of 0.0 or close to it. Position becomes paramount against these guys. With position, you can milk a ton of $ out of them. Without position, you can wind up building big pots without knowing exactly where you stand. If I have one of these guys to my direct left, I usually wind up tightening up to extreme because most of them don't adjust to your play and will still pay off your monsters.

3. Bluffing of missed draws - I was surprised how often you will see someone over shove all in when their draw misses on the river regardless of their stack size. It is usually the random player that sits down at the table, not the regulars. I was buying in for 100bbs at the deep stack tables but recently increased that to 200bbs mainly because of this over shoving seemed to be happening way too often.

4. Some players get more frustrated when you 3 bet them too much. - A few nights ago, I had been pretty aggressive on the button on one table. A nitty guy (10/8) to my immediate right was obviously getting frustrated when an ideal situation arose. It folded to him in the cutoff and he raised 3x. I had AA on the button and raised like 2.5x his pf raise. SB and BB fold. CO insta-shoves for 100bbs. I call and he turns over AQ. (This was actually at 100nl)

5. Most players don't get all-in with draws that are favorites. - This is mainly the nitty guys. I can't tell you how often I have seen players just call each street hoping to hit their monster draws (straight draw+flush draw, etc) that have to be favorites instead of raising with it. Once they hit their hands become very transparent.

There are quite a few other differences, but these are the ones that come to mind first.

Tampa Hard Rock Trip Report

It's been a while since I've updated, but here goes........

First and foremost, GO GATORS!!! The FL/LSU game was a little boring, but effective. The Wins are what count and the Gators went into a tough stadium (especially at night) with a quarterback that wasn't 100% and came away with a win. GO GATORS!!!!!

Hard Rock Tampa Trip Report (Cash Game - $2/$5NL)

I decided to head over to the Tampa Hard Rock last Tuesday afternoon since I was slow at work - one of the benefits of being my own boss. I arrived at the Casino around 5 PM and sat down at the first available $2/$5 NL game with $100 max buy-in. (Yes, you read that right. Florida max poker buy-ins are $100.)

The table was comprised of several nitty players and one really awful guy that I don't think had a clue.

Typical example of a hand with the clueless guy:

Clueless limps utg ($100 stack). 2 more limps. I fold. Guy to my left ($200 stack - hasn't played a hand in 3 orbits) raises it to $60. Clueless guy UTG calls.

Flop 925r.

Clueless guy checks. Guy to my left goes all-in for the UTG's last $40.

UTG calls with J2o and doesn't improve. Guy to my left of course has AA.

I managed to get my stack all the way up to $400 before losing $200 to clueless guy when we got all in preflop with my JJ vs. his Q6o.

Later in the session I ran QQ into AA for $100 or so.

I finished the cash session down $60 and decided to register for the $100 MTT that was starting at 7:30 PM


Hard Rock Tampa Trip Report ($100 MTT)

I was hoping for a bigger turnout in the $100 7:30PM MTT than the 48 runners that showed up, but I wasn't expecting much since it was a Tuesday night. 48 entrants meant that the top 5 places would be paid.

Nothing really eventful happened for the first few hours of the tourney. Fast forward to 2 tables remaining......

The average stack was getting relatively small compared to the blinds when I went on a rush. I was winning races like never before (most against a lot shorter stacks):

My TT>AK and 66
My AK>JJ
My AK>99
My AQ>AJ (not really a race)

I chipped up huge and was bullying the table when we were down to around 12-14 players remaining. Then my luck ran out:

Me: AK
medium stack: 99
All-in PF

Flop - KJT
Turn - 7
River - 8

My opponent got up from the table pissed and whined about how he can't win a race until the dealer started pushing the pot in his direction. He had no clue how he won until his neighbor explained that he made his straight.

Not much exciting happened until we hit the final table. I was probably a little above the average stack of 25k with blinds at 1k/2k no antes.

The final table was pretty comical from a mtt strategy stand point. Maybe 3 total people at the FT has a clue. A typical hand would see 3-4 limpers pf (most of the limpers in the 6-8 bb range). Flop comes down. One person bets minimum and everyone folds.

I chipped up twice with air in the BB after several players limped to my BB, I shoved, and everyone folded.

My favorite hand was one I wasn't involved in.

8 players; avg stack 33,000; blinds 2k/4k

I fold UTG. The entire table limps.

I don't remember the flop. Checks around to a guy with 3k remaining. He puts his last 3k in. Everyone folds. LOL.

When we got 6 handed everyone agreed to an even chop for a little better than 3rd place money ($680). I wouldn't normally agree to a chop in this spot because of how horrible several of the remaining players were, but I had 28k and was going to be in the BB with 3k/6k blinds. The chop seemed like a good idea since after the blinds I would probably be the shortest stack.

I forgot how horrid the play can be over at the Tampa Hard Rock. I may have to try to make it over there more than twice a year.

Free Poker Training

If you aren't signed up for free poker training, you are missing out. If we play at the same tables, please ignore this post.

Get Cardrunners/Stoxpoker for Free

I continue to receive CRs and Stoxpoker for free thanks to their truly free poker training program just for playing on FTP.

The link: http://www.trulyfreepokertraining.com/

The details:
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No hit to rakeback
You keep your points
Pretty simple (I guess it is FTP paying ppl additional RB to play)
Go sign up

To follow up on Bayne's recent post about the FTC requiring "Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service" I was not paid anything to make this post. I just can't imagine why people wouldn't sign up for it. If you hit the required number of points then you get free access to the training sites. If you fall under the required number of points then you can get discounted access (I think - may need to read the TFPT website info)

TV, NLHE, Football, and Blogger Tourneys

POKER ON TV

Poker on TV isn't dead, but they definitely need more cash games. I watched two weeks worth of episodes of Poker After Dark this month. That is probably as many as I have watched the rest of 2009 even though my DVR still records every episode. The reason that I watched every episode of PAD for two weeks this month - cash games. The show is just so much more interesting when they have cash games. There is always action when you get the right players at the table. The 6 max SNG format is very boring when you drag it out over five days. The early levels (first part of the week) are usually tight and the later levels (mid-end of week) become all-in or fold as the average stack dwindles relative to the BB. IMO, PAD should switch to 100% cash games.

WSOP ME - The jury is still out on the extended Main Event coverage, but I am starting to think it is going to be overkill. I feel like 2 more weeks of coverage before the final table would be more than enough, but there are still 6 more weeks of new ME episodes before the Final Table. Yes, we will get to see more interesting spots, but do we really need six more full weeks of coverage? How many more human interest (fluff) player profiles do they plan to squeeze in? Is the casual fan (occasional poker player or non-player) going to stick around for six more weeks? Surely there will be a pretty significant drop in ratings when people start realizing how long they have to wait until there is a conclusion.

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BACK TO NLHE

After an extended stint at the LHE cash games, I am starting to dip my toes back into the NLHE waters. I am going to keep very stringent bankroll guidelines and start at NL50 full ring. I have reviewed some old NLHE hand histories and discovered some big leaks and a couple of small ones. There are two in particular that are costing me a lot of money in the long run, but on the surface seemed very small. I will post more on those leaks and how I am doing with plugging them in a future post.

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RANDOM FOOTBALL THOUGHTS

College Football is so much more interesting than NFL imo.

How many NFL games would you really be interested in if you didn't have a Fantasy Football team? Would you even care to know the score of a Browns/Rams games if one the players wasn't starting on your FF team that week? I find it funny to watch friends rooting for teams that they would normally hate, because they have X, Y, or Z player.

Don't get wrong, I still enjoy watching NFL games, but the excitement and energy level of college football seems to be a few steps above the NFL. For the top 25 teams, each week is like a playoff game - a must win.

Maybe I'm just having a harder time getting excited about the NFL this year because my three favorite teams in order are Miami, Jacksonville, and Tampa.

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Blogger Tourneys

Hoy had a post last week about "The Death of the Private Blogger Tournament." I don't agree with some of his points, but it is worth a read. People used to play the Blogger tourneys for fun, but somewhere along the way things changed for various reasons.

I always tried to avoid the drama surrounding the blogger tourneys. I found it funny when grown adults would get into pissing matches about how someone played AJo or how someone "should have known that their gutshot draw was way behind." Some people were joking or purposely fanning the flames and others were seriously hurt or upset. No reason to want to beat someone up because they made a donkey call and sucked out on you. It doesn't matter that they think that their call wasn't bad. You don't need to convince them. LOL, it is just a tourney that you are supposed to be playing for fun.

My reason for playing less of the blogger tourneys may be different than some. I got burnt out on them during the last BBT. It seemed like we were having to play almost every night and by the end, I just didn't feel like playing them for a while. There were too many different tourneys even when the BBT wasn't going on.

I really think/hope that the right connected person could get a more casual blogger tourney series running again. It would just need to be something simple - maybe once a week. I'm sure that FTP or Pokerstars would donate all of the rake during the tourneys into an overall leaderboard prize pool or final tourney.

MTT - Flop Decision Results

I meant to get around to posting this last week.

Follow up of my last post. Thanks for all the great comments.

What do you do when he donk bets the flop?

Full Tilt Poker MiniFTOPS Event #12 $109 (antes from the start) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t30/t60 Blinds + t7ante - 9 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: t5586
UTG+1: t6265
UTG+2: t7350
Hero (MP1): t5965
MP2: t3921
CO: t5477
BTN: t7879
SB: t3224
BB: t5149

Pre Flop: (t153) Hero is MP1 with J J

3 folds
Hero raises to t180
3 folds, SB calls t150
1 fold

Flop: (t483) 5 3 8 (2 players)

SB bets t540
cmitch ?????

What is your action?

a. Call. Why? Plan for rest of hand?
b. Fold. Why?
c. Raise. Why? How much? Plan for rest of hand?

I got a lot of good responses.

I really felt like the guy was on a draw or a pair and a draw. I was with the majority and decided to go ahead and raise around 3x his bet with the intention of calling a shove. He shoved and showed..........

QQ

I think Pokerfool must have been watching the hand since he put the guy on exactly QQ. :) - Maybe he should start playing a lot more mtts.

Heffmike had some pretty good arguments for flat calling, but in the end I think the result is the same. I like his thoughts on maximizing value.

"Devil's advocate here:

Maybe it's too weak/too smallball, but what's wrong with using position, flatting, and reevaluating on the turn?

I guess it's all about reads. Would he be smart enough to donk lead and bomb the pot with a big draw/hand here? If so, then he's jamming to your reraise and you're going to get it in for 50 BB flipping at best.

If he's a aggro muppet just trying to blow you off AK, because EVERYONE has AK when they raise preflop, why cut him off now by raising the flop? Let him hang himself on the turn when he whiffs and donks again with his club draw or 8x. Sure, you take the chance of letting him catch up, but maybe with this player that's not such a bad thing.

I just get the feeling that if you raise/shove this flop, he's never going to come correct with something you crush like TT/99, or spew with 98/77, but he'll have some donk two pair/trappy AA/KK/QQ/or Ac3c type of hand.

If we prefer to play JJ fast here, be prepared for a ton of variance."

I thought that this was an interesting hand because of my reads on the player. He seemed loose and frustrated, so I was willing to get all the money in the flop. I'm guessing that I might have played it a little different with no history on the player or if the player seemed really tight. I think that it could have gotten really interesting if he was twice as deep - would make it a tough decision between a flop call, raise/fold.

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments.

MTT - Flop Decision?

The SB had been playing a ton of hands. He hadn't won any significant pots in a while and seemed frustrated often making big bets into pots. Most of the time his big bets were met by folds, but I had seen him lead with a big bet and fold to a re-raise.

What do you do when he donk bets the flop?

Full Tilt Poker MiniFTOPS Event #12 $109 (antes from the start) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t30/t60 Blinds + t7ante - 9 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: t5586
UTG+1: t6265
UTG+2: t7350
Hero (MP1): t5965
MP2: t3921
CO: t5477
BTN: t7879
SB: t3224
BB: t5149

Pre Flop: (t153) Hero is MP1 with J J

3 folds
Hero raises to t180
3 folds, SB calls t150
1 fold

Flop: (t483) 5 3 8 (2 players)

SB bets t540
cmitch ?????

What is your action?

a. Call. Why? Plan for rest of hand?
b. Fold. Why?
c. Raise. Why? How much? Plan for rest of hand?

Home Game Fun

The home low limit cash game the other night turned out to be a lot of fun. I got to see a few people that I haven't seen in ages, drink some beer and splash around some chips. I played a ton of hands and ran pretty good. We played $0.25/$0.50 NL with a $50 buy-in. I walked away +$80 (after buying beer.)

We were using multi-color poker chips without denominations, so Steve printed a list of how much each chip was worth and posted it on the wall. The denominations were so confusing that it took about 2 hour before I finally stopped referencing his list.

CrackinAA
I won a big pot pretty early. I was the big blind. It folded to Steve in the sb and he raised to $3. Since I was playing almost every hand, I decided to call with 3c4c. The flop came 256. Steve bet $7. I called. The turn was a 9. Steve bet $12. I shoved. He called with AA.

2 outer ftw
About 10 mins later Dave raised to $3 in mp. One person called. I made it $9 otb with AA. Dave called. Everyone else folded. The flop was Q99. Dave checked. I bet $14. He shoved. I called. Dave had QQ. I was drawing pretty slim until the Ace hit the turn. Yikes!!

We started out 9 handed and lost a couple of people after about 2 ½ hours. We lost 2 more people about 1 ½ later and wound up playing 5 handed for a while which made things a lot more interesting.

Overall I had a great time getting together for some poker and beer. I think (and hope) it is going to become a once a month thing.

Home Game Tonight - Old School Style

I am going to a home cash game tonight. Usually, I get excited about a home game when there are fish with money, but tonight there are different reasons. We are playing a very low limit cash game ($50 max buy-in I think), but it should be a little like a time warp to 2003-2005. One of the regulars from our old Wednesday night game is trying to put together a semi-regular game (once a month or so) in his new game room above his garage. A few (maybe 4-5) of the regulars from the Wed game should be there tonight - maybe even a couple that I haven't seen in years.

My original connection with the old regular Wed night game was due to random luck. My wife and I were in the UB Aruba check-in line in 2003. We started talking to the two guys in line directly behind us. They were both from Orlando also. One of them had won the Aruba package online and his friend was lucky enough to come along for the ride. I don't remember how, but we wound up meeting a couple more people that were also from Orlando later in the trip. I doubt there were more than a handful of people there from Orlando and we randomly had met 4 of them. We all exchanged numbers and email addresses when it was time to head back to the real world.

Fast forward to a month or so later - I got a call from one of the guys that we met asking if I was interested in coming to a home game. It started much like most home games - we shoved the dining room table and the kitchen table together and played $20-$40 sngs. There was even a ramp (part of a pizza box) between the tables since they were different heights. The game gradually grew with real tables, dealers, tourney clocks, and of course rake. It was no longer our "home game." It was now called Orlando-UPC. The sngs turned into 2 table sngs and ranged from $80 - $250 on Wed and Sunday. I tried to make it every Wed night and always had a great time.

My visits to the game became few and far between after our son was born in Sept 2005. Loopy (the originator of this blog that has stopped posting) even wrote a trip report in 2005 after our first time back months.

I rarely made it to the game over the next several years and it gradually morphed into something different. It was moved from it's original location to a guy's house near downtown. The games got bigger and there was even a bouncer from one of the downtown night clubs there for security. The original regulars gradually stopped coming to the game as often (for a variety of reasons) and were replaced with new regulars. I remember heading to the game a year or so ago and knew only 3-5 people of the 20 or so that were there.

Orlando-UPC closed it's doors sometime last year shortly after the guy that ran the game got married. They had a pretty good 5 year run.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the old faces tonight. There should be plenty of beer flowing and chips flying.

Ever Google your screen name?

I googled my screen name the other day and came across the usual stuff - blogger game hands, hands people post that didn't involve me but I was at the table, a random suckout, other blogs that link to mine, etc, etc.

A few pages in I stumbled across the following post I made on a poker forum way back on 7/16/03:

"I have been playing on Poker Stars for a while now. I just signed up for Ultimate Bet. I've only played a few hours so far, but it seems like UB is not as user friendly as PS. Maybe I'm missing something or haven't found all the features yet. Maybe you guys can help.

UB - Is there any way to view other tables in a tourney? Is there a way to make notes on players (other than my own pad and paper)? Is there a place where you can see the chips that each player has during a tourney?

Thanks for your help. I guess I might be spoiled by the features (or familiarity with) at Pokerstars."

I laughed on some many levels:

- It was over six freaking years ago. I had been playing since probably the end of football season - Jan 2003 (a few months prior to Moneymaker). I can't believe that I have been playing online almost 7 years.

- UB's early tourney lobby really sucked.

- Shortly after that post, UB became my favorite site and I rarely played anywhere else until FTP came on the scene. It could have something to do with me winning an Aruba package about 1 or 2 weeks after I made that post (It may have even been a couple of weeks before that post). I remember having no real clue about how to play tourneys when I won my Aruba package. I played my cards, my draws, and remember constantly asking myself "Will/can he call if I raise all in here." (Myabe that was my first clueless exposure to hand reading)

- Wow, how the mighty have fallen. UB lost their original market share and failed miserably to capitalize on their early entry into the online poker world long before anyone even knew the term "superuser" The main reason was piss poor management and customer service. They started having weekly and sometimes daily crashes and were horrible at sorting things out.

- I miss the early UB/online poker days. I don't miss UB, but I miss the "friendly" feel the site had back then. You were playing against the same people all the time and most of the regulars knew each other and chatted during tourneys. I enjoyed watching final tables because at least 2 or 3 of my online "friends" were at most final tables. Jack asses and abusive chat were few and far between.

- I miss the small field medium buy-in tourneys that ran regularly. My decision to play a tourney or not back then was sometimes based on whether or not it was going to be over 100 players. Between 50-99 players they paid 10 spots and 100-200, they paid 20 spots. I regularly played the $50 - $100 75-150 player tourneys during week day peak hours (8PM EST - 10 PM EST)

- I think a MBA class could use the online poker early years through the initial launch of FTP as a great study in online business launches in the early years. It would and interesting study of what was done right and wrong and how that translated into the poker site's current revenues.

Wow, this turned into a rambling post that could have probably been summed up as, "I'm old and I miss the early years of online poker even before I found Party Poker.:

Mini-FTOPS and WCOOP

WCOOP starts tomorrow and the Mini-FTOPS is right around the corner. I haven't played many tourneys lately, but will probably play a couple WCOOP events and several Mini-FTOPS events.

The WCOOP schedule sucks during the week for anyone with a job (me) and sucks on the weekend for those with families (me again - I rarely play when the kids are awake on the weekends). They do have a few 8 PM EST events that I may try to play.

On the other hand, it seems like the Mini-FTOPS is geared towards the working man with a ton of 9 PM EST tourneys. I will probably several of these not only because of the time, but because you can buy into any of the the events with FTP points. I currently have around 100k ftp points and will probably use most of them during the Mini-FTOPS.

Right now I am considering playing the following events:

WCOOP

Event #5 - $109 8 Game $50k Guarantee (Fri 8 PM) - I feel comfortable playing all these games and am probably weakest in the stud and stud h/l. I should have an edge in the LHE rounds because there are a ton of NLHE players that don't have a clue about all the nuances of LHE. I haven't played triple draw in a while, but played it occasionally way back in the day when UB first starting spreading it (5 yrs ago?).

Event #8 $215 LHE $400k (Sat 4:30 PM) - I would really like to play this but it is during the day on the weekend and it is also on the first day of college football, so it is probably a no go.

Event #23 $320 NLHE (10 min lvls) (Next Fri 9/11 8 PM) - I will probably play this one if I satellite in.

Mini-FTOPS

Event #1 - $22 NLHE $200k guarantee (4,400 ftp points)
Event #3 - $22 O8 $30k guarantee (4,400 ftp points)
Event #12 - $109 NLHE antes from start $250k guarantee (21,800 ftp points)
Event #14 - $55 HORSE $50k guarantee (11,000 ftp points)
Event #15 - $22 NLHE turbo 6 max $100k guarantee (4,400 ftp points)
Event #17 - $33 NLHE 6 max rebuy $200k guarantee (6,600 ftp points)
Event #19 - $22 LHE 6 max $50k guarantee (4,400 ftp points)
Event #21 - $33 RAZZ $25k guarantee (6,600 ftp points)

I'll try to post some interesting hands/tough decisions.

Got a chance to use FTP's new MTT Chop Feature

I stumbled across FTP's $75 LHE mtt last night. I'm not sure if this is a regular tourney or just on Sunday nights, but it was fun (and a little frustrating since it was LHE after all.) When we got 3 handed I had 60k and the other two had around 85k. The limits were 3k/6k and about to go up to 4k/8k. I figured it was a crap shoot and I might as well lock in 2nd place cash.

I think that I made a decent deal, considering anything could have happened. What do you think?

Original payouts
1st - $1,678
2nd - $1,022
3rd - $734

Chop adjusted payouts
1st - $1,176
2nd - $1,170
3rd - $1088