guapoker

Hey

2006-05-15T12:43:00.000-04:00

Haven't been posting sorry. Will start posting again soon.

Party Poker rebuy EV vs. normal tournaments

2005-11-17T09:17:00.000-05:00

After playing many a tournament online, I have found my two favorites, both of which happen to be on PP. The $215 buyin Friday Special, which usually has about 800 entrants for a $160K prize pool, and the $33 rebuy tourney which they have on weekend nights around midnight, which usually has about 450 players and a $45K prize pool (assuming $100 invested per player).

The $215 tourney is pretty straight forward, however the $33 rebuy is not. I have now played it about 3 times with a maniac, bug-exploiting strategy where each time I emerged as chipleader after the rebuy period. What I'm doing is playing strict push/fold poker despite the small blinds, rebuying each time I'm all-in, and hoping to build a monster stack when other gambloors start calling with trash. I feel like I can reliably build a big stack this way, usually about half way in I can stop rebuying and just bully my way to the chiplead by the first break. I played one of these on Saturday and rebought about 5 times, plus my initial buy-in and the add-on, for a $213 investment in a $45K prize pool tourney.

So the math question is how do these tourneys compare, and is this rebuy strategy profitable, and how much is it worth it to invest essentially twice the buyin as the average player in exchange for a reasonable shot at being chip leader an hour in?

Playing with a spreadsheet and a host of assumptions about my edge and how fast players are eliminated, I'm drawn some conclusions.

In the $215 tournament, assuming half the field gets eliminated in the first hour, and my edge gives me a 60% probabilty of reaching the first break at par, my probability weighted equity is $240. That's a pretty straightforward calc.

However, in the rebuy tournament, how much is my equity worth if I can amass 3x the average chips, while 350 of the original 450 survive (this is about where I've been after the rebuy period when I've done this before), and assuming I can do this 90% of the time? If the answer is 3x of what it would be if I had average chips, my probability weighted equity should be $347.

After the first hour, the tournaments are similar in terms of what my edge is and how fast players are eliminated. Obviously though I'm starting from a more advantageous position in the rebuy tourney which should be exploitable into the third hour or so.

In any case, I estimate as a result of a host of assumptions that I can cash about twice as often in the rebuy tournament (about 30% vs. 15%) which works out kind of neatly because the buy-in per participant is about half as much, making the EV before the tournaments start about the same. I actually think the ROI of the rebuy tournament might be higher, because the field is smaller, it should be somewhat easier to cash higher (I calculated winning about 3 times as often in the rebuy tournament, or about 1.3% of the time vs. .4% of the time in the $215 tournament).

However, the big assumption this all rests on is how much is it worth to be amongst the chipleaders at the end of the rebuy tournament. The marginal value of each rebuy declines, but I think it is higher than the marginal cost for a long time given the mathematical advantag of being a big stack in the tournament. Is having 3X par multiply your equity by 3?

Incidentally, if I were to rebuy 8 times (total investment of $303) that is about the breakeven point between the tournaments from an ROI standpoint.

Of course this strategy all depends somewhat on the rebuy bug in the PP software. I really think 90% of the time I can buy the chiplead. Without the bug though, I'd have to rely much more on luck than sheer rebuying power. Also, I have to assume that not many other people in the tournament are employing the same strategy. A few others can, but for this strategy to work, I pretty much need to dominate my table.

So, the profitability of my rebuy strategy depends on a strong link between my end of the rebuy period chipstack and my finish in the tourney. To take an extreme, if I could guarantee I win the tournement by rebuying 100 times, from an ROI standpoint, I should certainly rebuy 100 times. This probably though doesn't maximize your ROI, so where do you draw the line? Who knows.

FWIW, I've done this about 3 times, once I flamed out in the 2nd hour, once I flamed out in the 3rd hour (bubble), and once I flamed out in the fourth hour (unprofitable cash). However, this is entirely within the parameters of my post rebuy period edge (I assume I'm at the 60th percentile). Should be long before I actually manage a decent cash from this, then again, I'm running bad.

Taking a break

2005-11-07T00:49:00.000-05:00

Downswing continues, ever so frustrating. The worst part about it is that I know exactly what my leaks are, but I am so tilted I can't do anything about it. Time for a break!

When I look at my stats, the cause for my problems is very very crystal clear: I can't play shorthanded. My results in full games are great, my results in shorthanded games are terrible. If I average them out, I'm still a "winning player" but really I need to face reality and recognize that shorthanded games have nothing to do with it, and they only hold me back.

Shorthanded games are appealing to me because of the faster pace, and certainly at times they seem more profitable. But if you are playing against a few people who are running good, there just isn't much you can do and the variance will be huge.

I am completely disappointed in myself that it is taking me so long to get things back on track. Many lessons learned. I would not wish pro status on my worst enemy, this game sucks.

Thoughts

2005-10-24T17:16:00.000-04:00

I regularly participate in a poker discussion group at Fool.com, and posted this today in response to the italicized statement:

I'm just going to say this and then take the hits... if you haven't played poker for money for at least 5 years, you probably have no idea how severe the swings can be in this game.

Not that I disagree, but poker has changed so dramatically in the past five years that I think I can at least somewhat question the validitiy of what you say. The dramatic change of course if 5 years ago the pro played in a casino, now your typical pro is 4-tabling 30/60 on Party Poker or whatever. I imagine ZeeJustin has played more hands of poker in the past two years than maybe someone like Doyle Brunson has in the past 10. So I propose a real online pro who has been around for awhile might actually understand the issues of bankroll protection and variance more than an old-school pro because he sees the long run so much faster. So, I think someone like Thomas Keller, who is even a few years younger than me, might understand this stuff as well or even better than any old school pro, and this seems evidenced by his 1000BB requirement.

So related, and maybe unrelated, all the quality multitabling online goons (and by quality I mean the top 100 or so who make real money) really maybe have developed a deeper understanding of the game than any type of pro that's ever been produced, and perhaps are as good if not better than the casino pros who get all the accolades.

Going back to ZeeJustin, this freak can't even legally enter a casino, but he must be making well over half a million annually just playing online. That has got to put him in the top say 250 players in the world period from a pure results point of view, which has to mean something. And I don't think the math works that you could get to that type of level without understanding all this bankroll and psychology stuff without going severely broke.

The problem though with online is players like me. I'll go on a limb and say I fall somewhere in the 60-70th percentile of online players. I think I have an edge in the game and am profitable in a statistically valid sense, but I am prone to subtle and not-subtle tilt. By playing so many hands over a small period of time (not that I'm >4 tabling or playing full time), the problem is I play too many hands before I discover problems and adjust, which all else equal means I need a bigger roll to survive. This is kind of depressing if it is true that about my percentile estimate. My risk of going broke playing the way I play is probably larger than even I understand, and I think I'm better than average and probably more educated and otherwise financially sound.

The underlying fact behind all of this is that as a business, playing poker is just so terrible. The high failure rate of pros is evidence of the fact. Even if you are good, edges are small, and it doesn't take that much variance to break someone. Furthermore, the edges are very deceptive because they pale in comparison to the effects of variance, so in the short run, it is impossible to tell if you have an edge or not, which will often lead to financial ruin.

If you think about the macro poker economy, the growth of no-limit cash games has to be a very devastating effect.

I found this today at pocketfives: (http://www.pocketfives.com/C0CAA81F-061A-4895-9FA3-8D7AFBF7A82A.aspx)

It is just another thread about some dude who was tilting, sat down with his entire roll (5K) at a NL 50/100 blind game, and well, you can figure out how this ends, and the telling fact in all of this is the guy still doesn't get it ("Well yes, sitting at the table was wrong because i couldn't afford it. But it definitly wasn't wrong sitting there because i was underskilled.")

Anyway, this is a long meandering post that the economics of poker suck, and the challenges posed by the speed of online and the complexities surrounding these issues can be pretty detrimental to the poker economy, and those managing to be insanely successful doing this online are underrated in a relative and absolute sense.

Popped my cherry...

2005-10-23T19:36:00.000-04:00

I'm on the moral equivalent of a 200BB downswing, my first. Just a brutal, brutal week. Usual assortment of variance, suckouts, and tilt contributing to the losses. I do believe I am turning the corner, and essentially broke even this weekend, and the downswing came from a very high water mark, so I'm not even down that much this month.

A few notes to myself:

--Game conditions at PP have changed dramatically, generally for the worst. Changes can be either subtle or big. Generally, I think the player base is more passive.

--Semi-bluffing EV comes from two things: your chances of drawing out and the chances your opponents fold. As the games have become more passive, I'm spewing chips semi-bluffing because opponents just call. And when you aren't hitting draws anyway, this gets real expensive, real quick.

--20/40 feels more to me like 30/60 used to, so I'm putting in more time playing that level.

--PP games are now often short handed. I'm finding that I generally enjoy playing short handed vs. full tables, and players play worse and genuinely short handed tables than they do at 6-max tables. I think these games have the potential to be very profitable, and they weren't really there so much before, so this is definitely the beneficial side of the PP changes.

--My ability to adapt to game conditions needs a lot of work. It took me way too long to believe in the changes that were taking place and strategizing how to adapt.

--I am beginning to realize at this point in my development, managing tilt is maybe more important than thinking about the fundamentals and improving my fundamental game. Proper fundamental play is relatively straightforward. Managing tilt is not.

--My mind is pretty immersed in limit HE, as a result, my other games have suffered. I have spent an ungodly amount of money trying to qualify unsuccessfully for the cruise and I believe the primary culprit is because the sats are no-limit.

--There is probably an opportunity for me personally to focus more on the issue of managing tilt. Perhaps I should be writing more on this topic. Book deal please?

--Tilt can take a lot of forms, and is often quite subtle, but very, very costly. I might just be gradually playing too many hands, I may be 3-betting preflop too much or indiscrimately, I may be cold-calling too much preflop. I maybe semi-bluffing too much for the game conditions. I might be making too many loose flop calls. I might be too timid on the turn and on the river. I might be thinking about position too complacently. I may be missing river value bets. I might be calling too much on the river, or not enough. Bankroll judgement errors contribute, as do session losses, fatigue, emotions, etc. There is a lot to think about and write about, perhaps another day.

Blarg!

2005-10-20T23:18:00.000-04:00

Its my blog, I can whine a little.

I just played a Cruise Step 4. I started by doubling up with KK. Then, all downhill. I lost TT to KQ, all-in preflop. I lost KK to 99, all-in preflop. I stole blinds to get back to par, and won a few posts. Then lost AA to KT. Finally lost AQ to K9. That's a pretty bad run of luck.

I also managed to lose over 50 big bets at 30/60 in just over 100 hands! Try to replicate that. When I get the money in ahead, they suck out, or when I hit the flop, I'm dominated. Can't win a hand to save my life.

Man, I hate it when people complain about this stuff, but maybe it will be cathartic.

I'm now losing money this month which I'm not too happy about, but thankfully there is still some month left. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure to be profitable every month, and I'm certainly due to have an unprofitable month, so hopefully I can just get this out of the way.

Done with Eurobet

2005-10-20T17:23:00.000-04:00

I'm officially done with Eurobet. The quality of the games has rapidly deteriorated. The other night I sat down to play, there were only 2 tables of 30/60 running, each were 5 handed, I made each 6 handed. 80% of the players were at both tables.

After sitting down, I lost a few big pots to one player who was calling any number of bets preflop and on the flop, only to draw out on the turn/river. Very fishy play, but whatever. He leaves, I follow him to see where he's going, of course it is to the 100/200 game. Hardly great game conditions in 30/60 when it is a bunch of 100/200 players donking it up waiting for their seat to open up.

Anyway, I 100% cashed out. I think the skins are screwed. Long live Party Poker! Sorry for ever leaving!

On the rakeback controversy...

2005-10-10T15:25:00.000-04:00

For those who haven't heard, Party this weekend made the decision to cut free their Skins. This development could be perceived as anywhere from interesting to devastating, depending on your point of view. My initial reaction was surprised/dismayed, but as I sort things out I feel pretty indifferent, though I'd like to see resolution on some issues. A lot of people are saying "the sky is falling" which I think is a bit overly dramatic, or maybe this is the only way they have been earning money.

First, this seemed inevitable to those who have been following Party (the company) closely. Over the past few months, the rate of growth of players for Party had slowed down, despite increased spending on marketing. A big culprit of this was aggressive marketing by Party skins, who one way or another were offering rakeback to players. From Party's perspective, this is ok if it is bringing new players to the game, but terrible if it dilutes Party's player base, which is exactly what was happening. I for one had gone from monthly paying Party thousands, to virtually nothing as I signed up for rakeback though Eurobet about a month ago. The rakeback is worth about $500 monthly to me, while the games are the same, so it really is a no brainer to do this.

So what is Party to do? Sit idly by and do nothing? I suppose they could have worked out with the skins a way to eliminate rakeback as an incentive for players to leave Party. Still, Party needs to find places to grow and I imagine would like to have more control over understanding their player base, and probably felt the return it was getting on fees from the Skins just wasn't big enough in relation to what they received from the skins.

I think Party's dominance is strong enough that this was a sound financial decision. Really, what choice do the players hurt by this have? Most likely the player base at the skins collectively isn't big enough to compete with Party, and most of those players who went there in search of rakeback will come back home to Party. The risk is that players decide to go to PokerStars or UltimateBet, however, like the skins, they don't have the critical mass to support as many games as Party does, while most players aren't interested in leaving Party's fishy waters for the sharkier scene elsewhere.

The biggest impact on me is I expect to lose rakeback. However, as a winning player, does this really matter all that much? Say I play 10K hands a month and win 2BB/100. That is $12K of profit. Rakeback might be only $500 or so. Keeping the ability to earn 2BB/100 is much more important to keeping rakeback. Why risk that by playing on a new site or even the Skins? I don't want to disrupt the apple cart, so I'll be staying on Party, just paying higher rake. As El Diablo stated at 2+2, "This is only a huge issue imo for medicore and poor multi-tabler monkeys."

So, the bigger question that few seem to be focusing much on is what does this do to the quality of the games. I am a bit concerned that the rakeback money is now leaving the poker economy so to speak. This will turn some breakeven players into losing players, who might go broke quicker. Clearly the quality of the games is enhanced by keeping the rake as low as possible. I also imagine the player who gets rakeback is meaningfully sharkier than the one who doesn't, so maybe this "desharkifies" the remaining Party games. However, I think the jury is out on the net impact of all of this on game quality. All I know is I was happy with how it was before, and a little upset to ever see anything change.

It is also a little disconcerting that as competition has intensified for Party Poker, rake is actually going higher, not lower. This should work the opposite way. I'm confident that over time that Party recognizes what is at stake and finds more ways to reward their most valuable customers.

Still, all this analysis is based on some assumptions which may be faulty. How many players actually get rakeback? Maybe this is a much smaller problem than many think. Maybe the vast majority of those playing on Party are actually going through Party, not a skin, and have never actually heard of a Party skin, or haven't gotten around to signing up for rakeback. I know I played on Party for a long time after learning about rakeback, inertia just kept me at Party.

I think at the end of the day, this isn't that big of a deal for me beyond losing rakeback, with the caveat that this could hurt the games, which would of course be meaningful. I find the vitriol spewed by some at 2+2 towards Party is often pretty misinformed, and Party is just doing what they have to do. I wish the players collectively had a bit more bargaining power, but it is what it is and these recent developments confirm there isn't much we can do except complain.

Wow

2005-10-06T10:21:00.000-04:00

Wow, I already have to update my top ten list. Last night had another +100 BB session, actually 105BB. This session included one amazing hand where the average pot swelled to 25BB, which I took down with a set of Aces vs. two weak hands.

Definitely running good, which feels nice.

Still trying on the Cruise Steps. I have twice made the top Step, but each time I made some donkey play that busted me out. The most recent attempt was truly pathetic. I'm just glad I had an otherwise good night.

So here is the new top 10:

1. 6/03/2005 $35,909 (Friday Special)
2. 4/12/2005 13,445 (WSOP seat)
3. 10/5/2005 6,336 (30/60)
4. 10/3/2005 6,038 (30/60)
5. 9/24/2005 4,981 (30/60)
6. 8/27/2005 4,601 (30/60)
7. 9/30/2005 4,475 (30/60)
8. 8/06/2005 3,257 ($33 rebuy tourney)
9. 9/22/2005 3,129 (30/60)
10. 8/25/2005 2,863 (30/60)

And to be fair, here is my bottom 10. Note the strange drop between 9 and 10. I don't know if it is fair to count the WSOP as my worst session ever, but I count winning the satellite as one of my best, so I think I have to put it on each list.

1. 7/8/05 (10,000)
2. 9/17/05 (3,879)
3. 9/29/05 (2,864)
4. 10/1/05 (2,703)
5. 9/4/05 (2,661)
6. 9/3/05 (2,612)
7. 9/21/05 (2,602)
8. 10/4/05 (2,268)
9. 9/2/05 (2,239)
10. 8/28/05 (1,186)

Top ten

2005-10-03T22:44:00.000-04:00

Just had my first single sitting 100BB session in 30/60. Deck refused to stop hitting me. I just checked my results, my $6038 profit today places 3rd in my all time top ten sessions, which I present below:

1. 6/3/2005 $35,909 (Friday Special)
2. 4/12/2005 13,445 (WSOP seat)
3. 10/3/2005 6,038 (30/60)
4. 9/24/2005 4,981 (30/60)
5. 8/27/2005 4,601 (30/60)
6. 9/30/2005 4,475 (30/60)
7. 8/6/2005 3,257 ($33 rebuy tourney)
8. 9/22/2005 3,129 (30/60)
9. 8/25/2005 2,863 (30/60)
10. 8/31/2005 2,186 (30/60)

September

2005-10-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

September was alright for me.

As far as limit goes, I started out the month with a nice 120BB downswing in 30/60, but pulled out of it as the month progressed. I finished the month up about 70BB over 8K hands, so under 1BB/100, but at least it was profitable. Over my 30/60 career to date, I'm up over 1.5BB/100, which I don't think is too shabby. Sample size is still pretty small though, but I do feel like a winner in these games, although they are pretty tough and seem to be getting tougher as PP controls the inventory of tables.

I also played one session of 15/30 6-max the last day of the month. It was a heater session (up over 50BB), so the win rate was off the charts. 6-max I've noticed is a lot of fun, and I'll probably do more of it.

Tournaments were again a drag, around $1500 in cash out the door. Played a few WCOOP satellites but gave up. Also, spent some on trying to qualify for the PP Cruise event. Other than that, it is just a few bigger buyin tourneys, with no meaningful cashes. At the least this leak has gotten smaller for me as I'm not really playing many tournaments at all lately.

All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with the way things are going, but I feel like I could improve these results dramatically as I tighten up a bit and work on my leaks. The biggest leak is tilt and playing on when I know I'm not on my "A" game. Too often I'm playing my D or F game and just trying to get unstuck, and sometimes that gets ugly which has a big damper on my results. I really just need to develop the discipline to quit a session when I know I'm not playing well.

Specific things I need to watch for:
--Need to recognize when I'm tilting, it can be very subtle, i.e. playing too many hands or calling too much
--Need to forget about any daily goals, it really is just one long session and it is more important to just be playing my best
--I shouldn't play when I'm tired
--When I take a few 1-4 outers, probably better to just walk away. Yeah, bad beats are indicative ofo a good game, but the tilt effects are more than enough to offset
--I should stick to daily stop-loss amounts, like 30BB
--I just need to be more patient and the money will come my way

Those are all pretty straightforward things and it should be pretty easy to adjust, but it definitely is easier said than done.

As frustrating as this game can be, I'm pretty happy with my progress so far. I've only been playing seriously for a year, and now I have a nice second income. Still, I know I'm only scratching the surface with how well I could do, so this game will continue to be endlessly frustrating.

Game status check

2005-09-27T14:17:00.000-04:00

Haven't blogged in awhile which sort of defeats the purpose of the blog, which is just to have a historical record of my poker progress.

Anyway, after a recent positive run, September has been OK. I was fearing it would become my first unprofitable run since March, but that is looking less likely now.

I've been playing exclusively 30/60 for my limit game, while drastically cutting back on my tournament schedule.

I started the month on a swift 120 BB downswing which followed a sharp 100BB upswing late in August. Hands weren't going my way, but I feel the results were more of a minor tilt sort. It is very easy to let your game slip a little bit, and you are playing a bit too loose, or folding on the river a bit too much, and everything can fall out of whack.

In the middle part of the month I think I successfully dealt with some of the game type things that were bothering me, and pulled it out recently, with a 100BB positive day last Saturday, and a 50BB night last night. Sadly though that only puts me up about 50BB for the month, but I'm still happy with my win rate after about 10K hands of 30/60 (over 2BB/100).

I'm still playing a pretty loose, very aggressive strategy, so the swings are to be expected. It is just more of a challenge to deal with it emotionally. During the downswings I feel like a degenerate loser, during the upswings I feel like god. I need to find a happy medium, and I'll get there with more experience.

This is also my first month with rakeback, which MTD is worth about $500 to me. Dumb of me not to sign up for this sooner. Those interested in stalking me can find me now playing as SrtaBonita on the Party Poker network.

The only MTT cash I've had this month was a small one in a Party $33 rebuy tournament. As many know, Party has a bug in their software allowing you to rebuy during the rebuy period whenever your stack is below its starting value, net of the value you've put in the pot. In other words, say I preflop raise all-in and someone is thinking about calling, Party thinks I have zero in my stack and lets me rebuy. You can exploit this bug and basically buy yourself the chiplead by the end of the rebuy period.

I tried this and it worked, only had to rebuy 11 times! I rode it to a small cash, but as I've pontificated in the past, it wasn't really worth my time when I can be making 2BB/100 in the 30/60 game.

Party has also started Step tournaments for their PPM cruise this March. This is how I won my WSOP seat, so I'm going to give it a go for the cruise. I bought into the $215 level (Step 3), advanced to Step 4, fell back to 3, went to 4, and advanced to 5. I am now frequently waiting for a Step 5 to start, which doesn't seem to happen very often. I guess the cruise is pretty far away still, so hopefully these will fill up faster as the cruise gets closer. All I have to do is beat the 9 other people in the Step 5 and I'm on my way to a WPT event for $215. Not a bad deal.

On tournaments

2005-09-13T12:04:00.000-04:00

I wrote the post below a few weeks ago but never posted it. I'm still thinking of ways to measure the differing economics of tournaments vs. cash games, but my current stance is to take a break from tournaments.

For those following my poker progress, you'll know I've spent the majority of my time working on my NL tournament game. I've made several four-figure cashes (about six), won a WSOP seat, and most significantly, won a Friday Special tournament on Party good for a $36K payday. Playing in tournaments has been a fun and profitable endeavor for me.

However, lately as I've moved up limits playing limit poker, I'm really questioning the point in playing NL tournaments at all from a strict economic vantage point, and I hereby announce my retirement from NL tournaments.

My overarching hypothesis is that from the perspective of a winning 15/30 or 30/60 limit HE player, given the inherent statistical parameters of NL tourneys, there is no way my hourly EV in tournaments is anywhere close to what it is playing limit poker. This isn't a result of a limit heater (as you may be wrongly expecting is the genesis of this post), I just think from a pure profit perspective NL tournaments are so bad that really anything else is better.

An excellent example of what I'm getting at can be described by my weekend. I took Friday off of work, so I could stay up late Thursday and Friday night playing tournaments. Thursday night, I played the $165 Super Thursday tournament on Party, the $30 rebuy on Paradise, a $109 on PokerStars, and the midnight $109 on Party. This sounds like a lot more than it is, as it was never more than 3 at a time.

In the Super Thursday, lasted 2.5 hours for a zero payday. Rebuy lasted two hours for a zero payday on top of $120 investment. Pokerstars in unmemorable, but I only lasted one hour for a zero payday. Party midnight tourney, out in 13 minutes! Fun times, that took five hours, spent $503, grossed zero, for net of -$503.

Then I opened up two tables of 30/60 and made two grand in one hour. Clearly an extreme case here and an unsustainable win rate, but definitely makes you question the wisdom of playing any tournaments at all if I can make that much playing 30/60.

So, back my original question, which are better, tournaments or cash games from an hourly EV point of view? I find this question nearly impossible to objectively answer (vs. what my results told me Thursday night), but I'm getting closer.

Let's assume my average tournament is a $109 buyin ($100 to prize pool) with 300 entrants, which takes 5 hours to complete if I make it to the final two. What is my expected hourly rate?

Well, if I'm an average player, my equity in the tournament is $100. I'm not the average player though, so I can approach this problem by explaining where I come out relative to the average player. Let's say I am 2x the average player, so my equity is $200. I will also assume if I earn $200, that's for 3 hours of work to get that far in the tournament. That's only just over $30 an hour.

If anyone has any better idea of how to calculate a tournament hourly rate, I'm all ears, but I think these assumptions are fine, if not a little aggressive, as it is difficult to assume I am 2x the average player in these luck-fests.

Contrast this to cash games. Take 30/60 which I've recently taken on, playing 2 tables at a time. Let's assume 1BB/hour per table, so 2 BB/hour. That's $120 an hour right there, already 4X what I've assumed for tournaments. I think these are very reasonable, conservative estimates for a solid player.

So, if my assumptions are right, it's not even a close comparison. Maybe I'm underestimating my tournament ability. Certainly this year I'm making more than $120/hour playing tournaments, but that number is highly skewed. But to match $120 an hour, I would have to assume I am around 4x as good as the average tournament player, which just doesn't make any sense whatsoever, it just isn't possible whether it is me or if I were Daniel Negreanu that I'm 4x as good as the average player. Edges just aren't big enough in this game to justify that. I can reach no other conclusion than my limit earn rate is higher than tournaments, in fact it is much higher, and not even close.

It's not only the average hourly rate that is a concern, it is also the variance. NL is an inherently high variance game, and tournaments with escalating blinds force more showdowns which further increases variance. To win tournaments, you have to win showdowns, period. If you look though a hand history of anyone who has won a big tournament, you will see time and time again that they won essentially every coinflip they encountered. Winning one is easy, 50% chance. Let's say though you have to fade 6 consecutively to win a tournament, that drops you down to 1.5%. Maybe they are better than coinflips, let's say you get dealt AA six times and each time you get all your money in vs. a small pair. You still only have a 26% chance of surviving if you get to see all 6, which is a pretty low number for an improbably favorable set of starting hands. Anyway, you get my point, to do well in tournaments you need to win a lot of showdowns with minimal margin of error, which is a very hard thing to do in this game, and something completely outside of your control.

Given the high level of variance, to have a sample size from which you could derive a true win rate could take ages. That's the problem I have with this exercise. I can't look at my data and conclude anything. I'm way ahead of where I started, but that is due strictly to one event. I feel I have no way to prove that my positive results aren't the result of simply positive variance. Although I may be a winning tournament player, I will need to win more of those big buy-in tournaments, and I'm afraid they just won't come often enough to sustain my interest.

There are also the externalities of emotions and logistics that favor cash games over tournaments. I get so much more emotionally invested in tournaments, and bubbling out due to a bad beat can really ruin your entire day. The flip side though is that doing well in a tournament is an exhilarating and very satisfying experience that is difficult to replicate in a cash game. Still, I just think it is healthier for me to play cash games to avoid the lows of busting out of tournaments in unjust fashion.

The logistical differences between cash games and tournaments make me strongly prefer cash games. For every good tournament score I have, there is usually a near all-nighter involved. I'm not in college any more and it just isn't healthy to stay up until 6 am without entirely sleeping away my weekend. Cash games at least are always available and always endable at my option.

I think the big weakness in my argument is that with tournaments I am risking disproportionately less capital to earn say an equivalent earn rate in a limit cash game, but that goes beyond the scope of my view. This just says that I could maybe earn as much playing tournaments as I could in cash games if I just played more of them faster, but that just isn't logistically possible.

Having said all this, I probably won't give up completely on tournaments. They are just too much fun, but if I'm going to approach this game in a value-maximizing point of view, I need to always remind myself that by playing in tournaments I am likely costing myself something in expectation by not playing a cash game. I'll definitely still play MOTH, and I'd love to qualify for more WPT/WSOP events, so I'll still do some of that, but my days of playing several tournaments each weekend night are mostly history.

Food for thought from Josh Arieh

2005-09-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

From an interview posted on his blog:

JA: The biggest mistake I see amateurs making is playing big pots out of position. No Limit Hold'em is a positional game and I make it a point to have position when a big pot takes place. For example, say I am in the small blind with AK, I will very rarely raise with this kind of hand here, exclusively because of my position. Yes, the hand is good, but the position out weighs the "ranking value" of the hand. Pot-size management is more important than hand selection in No Limit poker. Work on that and you will become a much better player almost overnight.

Amusing NYC poker anecdote

2005-08-24T13:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday evening I'm commuting home from work on the bus leg of my bus/subway combination. I've waited forever to get on the bus, I take a seat in the back to be nice to all the other people going on. Shortly after taking my seat I recognize the distinct body odor smell only the homeless can generate. I see next to me is a repulsively dirty, cracked out couple. I really don't mind them, except for the smell, which I can't bear. Unfortunately, the bus has now completely filled up, so nowhere for me to go.

So, I just concentrate on my book. After about a four week wait, Amazon finally shipped me my copy of King Yao's Weighing the Odds on Holdem (which I would recommend).

Minding my own business, when one of my homeless friends starts talking to me. This happens fairly regularly, and I don't really mind. The conversations are always interesting.

He says "You know there is an easier way to learn how to play poker."

Me: "Oh really."

"Yeah, you should play online."

Then he gives me a big speech about this thing called "online poker" and how much fun it is, and how addictive it is, and how his site has all these freerolls. His female friend tells me she plays to, and is much better than him despite what he thinks. I then tune out for the next ten minutes as they ramble incoherently about online poker.

If online poker has caught on amongst the homeless of NYC, poker has officially jumped the shark.

MTT strategy

2005-08-23T13:47:00.000-04:00

I saw the below by Temp Hutter on 2+2, who finished 2nd to Tuan Le at WPT Foxwoods last year:

"The fact that Tuan plays garbage hands on a regular basis (and raises with those hands) makes it nearly impossible to know when he has a real hand or if he hit a piece of the flop, etc. You are always guessing and because he is usually the aggressor, he has the edge. It may be reckless, but it has been very effective for him."

Which also brings to mind some advice by everyone's favorite Dutch Boyd:

"The idea behind NL tournaments is not to show your hand unless you're sure it's good. (explanation of concept)

So how is it that people like Stu Unger, Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson could win the biggest event more than once? They must have gotten lucky... actually, they just rarely put themselves in a position where they were all-in. This year, before my hand with Moneymaker, I was only all-in one time during the whole tournament. Moneymaker was only all-in one time... against me. In order to win tourneys, you have to keep from going all-in. "

I think both these guys are right and it represents I think a leak I've been developing in my tournament game. I think I am becoming too relient on winning showdowns, playing too tightly in the few levels. I think I can outplay my opponents postflop, which is enough of an argument in favor of seeing more flops. But in general, I think too many players are playing too tight like me and the best way to adjust is to keep the pressure on.

My overarching point is that the tournament payouts favor a player with a lot of variance in his results. Too often I find I am busting out in the 20th-10th percentile (i.e. bubbling). I should play more of a go big or go home game.

Checking Flop After Raising

2005-08-19T13:38:00.000-04:00

From a discussion group I participate in:

Personally I think it is a tool that needs to be implemented. Here is a hand from a 2+2 thread where I feel that betting the flop is a waste of money.

Preflop: Hero is Button with As Kd.
UTG raises, 2 folds, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, UTG calls.

Flop: (9.40 SB) Jh, Qx, 2h (3 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets, BB calls, UTG calls.

I thought this was very thought provoking, and I want to stew on this for awhile. I will typically always bet the flop to follow up on my 3-bet preflop. Although I'm drawing pretty slim and might be behind, I think this play turns a profit from small pairs and the chance I can get better hands to fold. However, it begs the question about what I do if I get called, and if this is just chip spewing. Interesting hand.

TPTK vs. turn raise

2005-08-17T16:53:00.000-04:00

Reading through the latest issue of Card Player. Barry Tanenbaum has a series on common limit HE mistakes.

The advice posted below sort of suprises me. I guess it is very opponent specific, but in the games I play, I'm mostly calling down here, not folding. But what do I know?

7. Calling raises with one pair: You hold A-K and raise preflop, with only the blinds calling. On the flop of K-6-5, both blinds check and call your bet. When a 9 hits on the turn, both blinds check again, but when you bet, the small blind folds and the big blind check-raises. Should you call or fold?

Unless your opponent is very tricky, you are beat. He might have a straight, set, or two pair, but in general, you are riding a dying or already dead horse, and should simply fold and wait for the next hand. I have repeatedly seen players call the turn and the river, see the winning hand tabled, and then show their own cards around looking for (nonexistent) sympathy. Do not tell people you are laying down a good hand. Sometimes you might even say, “If I only had a pair, I would call you down for sure,” as you toss your top pair, top kicker into the muck.

In general, if a typical player raises you on the turn, and you have only one pair, you are in trouble. If the pot is small, you should almost always fold (call on rare occasions in games in which you see the same players over and over again, just so that people do not learn to bluff-raise you). In large pots, you might consider calling the turn in case you improve to a hand that counterfeits your opponent's two pair (if that's what he has), but fold on the river if you fail to improve. And if the pot is huge, you might have to call all the way on the slim chance that you have the best hand.
Most of the time, though, if you hold only one pair and are raised on the turn, calling is an error you can easily avoid.

Poker ROI

2005-08-16T18:31:00.000-04:00

This is something I wrote back in May when I was struggling with the economics of the game. Note this is before I won the Friday Special in June, and I only had a few grand in the bankroll. The catalyst for writing this was I was thinking of moving a bigger chunk of cash into my poker bankroll to move up limits. Thankfully I did it through tournament success instead. I'm officially playing on other people's money, having withdrawn more cash than I've put into poker.

My early May post:
Since winning my WSOP seat and the other MTT success I've had this year, I've decided to start taking things a bit more seriously from a discipline/return on capital point of view. I'm happy with my progress from total newbie to "level above newbie status" over the past 9 or so months.

The fact is despite my wins this year, from a profit standpoint and return on capital standpoint, it ain't all that great. This is due to a few bad tilted sessions, but more so just screwing around while learning the game (i.e. experimenting in different games and different playing structures), and of course bad play as I've progressed.

Tilting is self-explanatory, I'm getting better at controlling it through the types of games I choose to play and just better discipline as I get better. From a bad play standpoint, it's difficult to say because I don't think I have enough data, the data has been haphazardly kept, and I think can be misleading as you move up the knowledge curve and move around limits. I do however think my equity when I sit down is above breakeven and continues to improve.

Mostly though I've just spent a lot of my poker career to date not really focusing on managing return on capital. I've spent a lot of time wavering between playing limit cash games, limit SnGs, NL cash games, NL SnGs, TDL, PL Omaha SnGs, NLH MTTs, HU limit cash games, HU SnGs, and all at various limits. Just too much bouncing around.

Doing this has been very swingy, and not conducive to making (or losing) money. Money however to date hasn't really been a focus of mine. It has been more so on learning the game and having fun. I have a good job (I'm 26, no kids, no debt, typical hedge fund compensation, although my rent is high ($3K/month). But on the other hand, I'm trying to take my game to the next level and would like to manage to a higher ROI on my poker bankroll (I'm certainly not doing all that well in my outside of work, passively managed stock market money). Because, after all, efficiently making money is what this game is all about (beyond having fun).

So, now I sit pretty much having figured out what games I like to play (or at least should be playing) through the process I've gone through over the past 9 months. My preference is to play MTTs, time permitting, which is not often. Otherwise, it is SnGs. I feel fairly indifferent between Limit and NL from a game standpoint. I enjoy NL more from a fun standpoint, but limit is a lot of fun too, and for whatever reason, I think my EV in a tournament setting is much higher playing limit. Although other games interest me, I should stick to HE for now.

I really am not into playing online limit ring games. I find it difficult to stay interested in the task at hand, and it is too easy for me to tilt and difficult for me to limit my losses in that scenario. SnGs however my downside is capped, and I find it much easier to quit when behind, it doesn't take many first places to really boost the return on the initial buyin, and I feel it takes less to be properly bankrolled at a given level of SnG than it does a limit game.

This all brings me to the question I originally had when I sat down to write what turned into a lengthy post. I'm trying to verify as I decide to get more disciplined about things if forgoing limit ring games is a sensible thing to do. So, I turn to the data, and I'm having a hard time with evaluating a few things.

The way I'm thinking about SnGs and my push to become more disciplined is like this. I want to set a monthly profit goal (say my rent payment, around $3000). If I play 60 SnGs a month (i.e. 2/day), how good do I have to play and at what stakes to reach my financial goals? Well, just playing around on a spreadsheet, if I assume I never finish in the bottom 5, and place in the top 5 on an evenly distributed basis, I can just about achieve this playing $55 SnGs. These assumptions are meant to be overly aggressive, they are goals after all. This is an ROI of 82% (yeah, I know unrealistic), but that's the math. Still, even if I can achieve half of that, it's a better deployment of my capital than the stock market.

Now I'm just trying to think about the ROI equivalents in limit poker terms. So, if I go back to my 60 $55 SnGs/month math, that equates to a monthly profit of $2700. If I can do 2BB/hour (I know, aggressive assumption), and can get in 60 hours a month (most likely by 2-tabling an hour/day), this implies playing 10/20. Certainly above where I'm comfortable playing, but if I don't undercapitalize myself, it would be acheivable. So, finally the question I had, how do you think about ROI on your money in a limit poker game? Say it is the same 10/20 game. Would you think about the ROI as the $2700/300BB, or 2700/6000, or 45%? This doesn't really make sense, as you aren't really risking 300BB of capital. However, to earn the 2700, you are certainly risking more to get to that level than you would if you earned it playing SnGs, so the ROI has to be lower, but what is the right answer or how do you think about it?

My general sense is that for me at least, to get to a profit goal is less risky through SnGs than it is through its limit poker equivalent (i.e. $55 SnGs and 10/20 limit). I'm just trying to verify this and see how the games compare.

A second related question is how do you properly bankroll yourself if you decide you strictly want to play SnGs. Say I'm only playing $55 SnGs, and I feel I can always place 5th or better. I suppose this depends on the standard deviation of my finishes, but if it really is an even distribution, it wouldn't take many buyins to not worry about busting out. I do feel fairly certain it would be less though than the $6000 you would need to be properly bankrolled for 10/20 (i.e. 300 BBs).

I guess the depressing thing to me from all of this is it verifies that for otherwise high-income people, you can really never justify quitting work (not that I'm considering this, this is just a theoretical exercise). If I think about things from an hourly rate standpoint, assuming 2 SnGs per hour (though MTing), and all the assumptions I laid out above this works out to $90 an hour, which isn't too shabby, but to replicate my current income would have to be much higher not only because I make more than that, but also I can't play poker for 40-60 hours a week and my overhead would be much higher as a pro.

My true goal is to win the WSOP, get some corporate sponsorship, and not think about any of this stuff. Maybe that's more realistic than an 82% SnG ROI.

Thanks if you read this far. I'd be very interested in any thoughts of the limit grinders on here for how they think about these issues, and general discussion on poker's true return on capital.

June Vegas trip report

2005-08-16T18:27:00.000-04:00

This is from my June Vegas trip, my first real poker trip to Vegas (although it was a business trip). Here is something I wrote up when I got back:

Arrived Wednesday night late at the Wynn (~11 pm), was exhausted and had early meetings the next day, but felt I had to take the opportunity to play, so I went downstairs and got into the ½ blind no limit game. Now, this was only my third live session in my life and my first playing NL, but it went well, made about $50 an hour which isn't bad for that limit.

Had meetings all day the next day until 10 pm. As a result of being a little tipsy and impatient given the long wait for the ½ no limit game, I played 4/8 and ended up losing a few bets for my first losing live session ever (of four). No big deal, but it was just dumb of me to play limit. I'm really not that good at it and totally out of practice, so it should be all the surprising I would lose money.

Friday I again had meetings, but the last meeting cancelled and I was done with work at noon. I had planned on playing the Bellagio tourney on Saturday, but was concerned about cutting it close with respect to my return flight Saturday night, so I now had an opportunity to play on Friday instead.

So to the Bellagio I go for the $1060 buyin tourney. To drop this much on a tourney seemed a little insane to me, but I felt this was my best forum for my first live tourney experience and necessary preparation for the WSOP ME next month.

88 people bought in, and you receive 3000 chips. Blinds are about 40 minutes. I thought the structure was fine. I started out pretty nervous, but relaxed after awhile and played my normal game. It is interesting to play against a group that all seemed comfortable dropping a grand on a tourney. I was down initiatially after folding after a raise after my preflop limp, and folding on an ugly flop. I won my first big hand when I flopped 2 pair with A9, which became a full house on the river. The river also put 3 to a flush on the board, and I was hopeful my small bet on the end would get raised, but apparently he wasn't on the flush and folded.

From there I built my chips up to about 5000 or so, then I fell apart a little. One off the button, I raise after several limpers with AJs. The BB reraises, I fold. He then proceeds to tell me I'm raising too much in late position after people have limped in and he wanted to put me in place. I said I'd love to know what he reraise with and he said it wasn't a hand worth a reraise. Good to know, jerk.

Next hand get dealt AK, raise, get called by SB. Flop is JTx, he checks, I bet, he raises all-in. It is 900 more for me with 1500 or so in the pot, so I called, which is probably a bad move. He had AT, and I heard him tell the jerk from the earlier hand he had put me on AK or AQ. I get no help, and am now pretty crippled.

Next hand I go all-in with KQ, get called by A-little and I flop a Q, so now well below average but still alive.

From then on I'm playing a small stack and build it slowly until I move to a new table. I'm only there for a little bit, steal a few blinds with some medium strength hands and get back to a respectable stack.

I get moved again when we consolidate to three tables. I steal the blinds with KJ, then AA, then later get dealt KK in LP. UTG raises, a standard size reraise puts me all in, so all-in I go, raiser calls, flips up AJ. J on the flop, A on turn and IGHN in 23rd place. Top 9 payed. While I was very happy with my play, this was a pretty awful way to go. Had I doubled up on the hand, I would have seriously contended for a money slot but it was not to be. At least the experience gave me confidence I can roll with that level of player. I didn't recognize anyone in the tourney expect one guy who I saw on a WPT final table (I don't know his name). I saw Sklansky mulling around the tourney area and thought he was playing, but I was wrong.

Tournament was a four hour investment of my time and I felt totally mentally spent and tilted afterwards. I took a cab over to the Rio to check out the WSOP, but couldn't bring myself to play because I was in such a bad mood. I saw the expectant range of famous people though, which is always interesting. But I just wasn't amped about playing in a big cramped ugly conference room given my mood at the time and decided I'd be better served going back to the Wynn. I was in such a bad mood that I just went to sleep and stayed in my room hating KK.

Next day I had totally free to play and I decided to just stay at the Wynn until it wasn't fun. I decided to move up to 2/5. I played two sessions, one for 7 hours, one for 3 hours with a dinner break in between.

First session I started out totally killing it. I turned my 500 buyin into about 1700 at the high water mark. The table was extremely soft and I was a luck box to boot.

I had two really big hands. In one, an EP fish does a standard raise, I reraise to 100 with AA, BB calls my raise, EP raiser goes all-in for 10 more. I made a minor mistake (doesn't really matter though), and just called the 10 more. Betting is still open, and the BB, who has me outchipped says the beautiful words “all-in.” I of course call, he flips up JJ and I win the massive pot.

Later, I have AJs and player next to me goes all in on a J high flop, I call, he flips over AJs in a different suit, but I have the flush draw. I hit my flush on the river.

Later in the session, I'm now too hungry to realize the table makeup has gotten much worse and I start getting sloppy and finished down a few hundred from my high water market.

I regroup and get some dinner, come back, and have another profitable session. No real memorable hands for me, but this was a more fun table with much trickier players. I did see an amazing bluff, most amazing I've seen.

I wasn't in the hand, having folded in the BB. EP player raises, LP player, a big fat goth guy calls. Flop is Txx, with two to a flush, EP bets, LP calls. Turn is a T, EP bets, LP raises representing a T, EP calls. River is something 7h that completes the heart-flush. EP bets like 200 into what is now probably a 500 pot, LP raises all in for about 500 more, EP goes into the tank and folds. Goth guy promptly throws down 7c6c to take down the monster pot. Maybe you had to be there, but it was the most dramatic river situation I could have imagined. It was either incredibly smart or incredibly dumb but he had some sort of read on this otherwise very solid player that he would fold whatever hand he was playing.

My win rate for 2/5 blinds live NL was over 100 an hour. I'm not sure what a sustainable rate is, but I don't think it was very hard to achieve these kinds of results in the games I was playing. I had so much fun playing the cash NL games, I'm thinking about switching over to doing that on a much more regular basis online vs. tournaments. We'll see.

In any case, that was my Vegas trip in a nutshell. Got some good work done, got some good live playing in. I highly recommend the Wynn when you are in Vegas, the poker room is great, though I'd probably place it third behind the Bellagio and the MGM.

A classic hand

2005-08-16T18:25:00.000-04:00

This is something I posted elsewhere after my most recent Vegas trip. Probably my favorite hand ever:

Last night I went down around midnight to play in the 2/5 NL game here at the MGM. My first hand I play, about the third that I am dealt I look down and see AA. One limper, player on my right raises to 50, I reraise to 150, limper folds, initial raiser calls. This guy is still wearing his PP hat, otherwise I don't know anything about him.

Flop comes all raggedy and rainbow. He checks, I bet 200. So I sat down with 500, I've put 350 in the pot already on my first hand. Dude goes in the tank for literally 5 minutes.

In my day 1 report, I mentioned someone went in the tank for 5 minutes and someone asked if that really happens. I was probably exaggerating then, but it definitely happens. I have no problem with people taking their time at the WSOP with so much money at the line. But to do this in a 2/5 NL game is kind of a waste of everyone's time.

So the guy is hemming and hawing, and I'm doing a good job remaining cool just staring at the table while he's muttering "I just don't know how this guy plays." Then he shows me his QQ to try to get a reaction. He lays it face up to get a table reaction (I would think this makes his hand dead, but the dealer didn't do anything). Finally, after he shows me his hand, he calls, while he and I still have about 150 chips left.

Turn is a K. He checks to me. Hmm I wonder if I have the best hand. Poker is much less interesting when your opponent shows you his cards. I move in expecting him to fold. But again he calls. What a weirdo.

River is a brick and I double up. Weird stuff. He tells me "Nice hand."

Game status check

2005-08-16T16:15:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I played several hours of cash limit games and several hours of tournaments. I wish I had happier news to report but overall it was not a great weekend. I think this was partially a result of bad cards, but more importantly the weekend just reflected some sloppy play on my part. Without the benefits of my stats in front of me, I just wanted to go through some of the pitfalls I might be falling into as a means to just explore some of the potential leaks.

Limit cash games

--Since getting my new machine and 3-tabling instead of 2-tabling, my results have dipped a little. Unclear if this is a function of 3-tabling or something else. I think a little of both. Overall though I think I need to do a better job of focusing on the tendencies of my opponents, and not just assuming they are all just "random 15/30 PP players."

--I feel like I am too often betting into people I know will 100% of the time will otherwise call, and if I bet will 100% of the time raise. Most of the time it is just done without thinking, but I feel sick right after doing it. This is just spewing money away. I notice it often happens when I call a raise out of the SB, then bet out when I've hit the flop. Pretty much all the time in a lot of situations I should just let someone else keep the betting lead.

--I took a shot at 20/40 and lost 30 BBs. I have more than enough bankroll to move up to multitabling 20/40, but every time I try it the players seem so much more solid. This could also just be an effect of the variance of the deck as I have only a half dozen or so 20/40 sessions, so I really don't know. This session however has made me a net loser in 20/40 which doesn't feel good. Besides, it takes a larger amount of 15/30 to offset the 20/40 loss, so this kind of stuff is very frustrating. What was so bad with 15/30 that I had to try this? Oh well. I also took a shot at 30/60 this weekend and had a profitable session, and that felt much more like 15/30, so maybe there is just something weird about the player who plays at 20/40.

--I find myself playing way too loose when I am losing, hoping to catch back up. This is classic bad strategy. I really wish I had a way of not knowing if I am winning or losing for a session. I've explored things like putting sticky notes on my screen, or downloading some sort of virtual sticky notes that always stay on top, but haven't really gotten anywhere. I guess I just need to continue to grow up and stop thinking about results.

--I'm continuing to refine my attitude towards the PT stats which I have overlayed on my tables view PokerAce. The sample sizes are so small that I often worry about the stats giving me bad info. Besides, the more I think about stats like post flop aggression factor, I realize it should take many thousands of hands for this to mean anything, yet I often see players making decisions based on their stats driven off of a few dozen hands. I think I will reconfigure my layout to only do VP$IP and whether the player is winning or losing. I think everything else is most irrelevant for most players, and I'm better off just going on my gut. I'd shut down PokerAce entirely but their feature which shows the mucked losing hands on the screen instead of fishing it out of the hand history is just too priceless.

No limit tournaments
--Despite being generally on the laggy side, I think I am actually playing too tight in the first two levels. I've had the attitude lately that it just isn't worth pursuing small edges early, and that if I get a big hand I'll get paid off. The problem is that sometimes I won't get a big hand and get near-blinded out (i.e. 10x BB stack), and then lose when I run into a big hand with an all-in steal the blinds bluff. I still think it is right to play very very tight early, but I am missing some opportunities to pick up dead money from really bad players.

--In every tournament I seem to find a situation which leads me to do an all-in semibluff on the flop with something like a flush draw. Of course these haven't been hitting for me which is why I am whining. Perhaps I am playing these draws too aggressively, and a more passive approach would be better. Just something to think about as its been knocking me out too often.

--I played two MTT winner take all satellites for WPT Legends. Man it is hard to win a tournament. I mean, I think I've had great tournament results relative to the average player, but a lot of my expectation comes from just final-tabling, not just winning, although a certain win makes up the vast majority of my profits. Still, the WPT Legends fits very well into my schedule, and I would like to play more of these, so I don't see the harm in trying. I'm probably costing myself some money by not instead playing some other tournament, so I don't consider this a massive leak, although something to think about. I guess I could just make a rule for myself that if I make $6000 or so next weekend that I will buyin directly, and that would accomplish the same thing.

Finally, somewhat unrelated to this post, I continue to ask myself which game, cash games or tournaments are a better deal for me EV wise. I feel multitabling 15/30, I can on average expect to make say $100 per hour. How does this metric compare to tournaments? I really don't know how to answer, as I feel like I don't have the data to make that determination. Sure, this year on an hourly basis I have made more from tournaments, but that is massively driven by one data point. I can't exclude that tournament though, as the results do matter for this type of analysis.
I suppose if I could expect to win a big Party $215 tournament on a regular basis, the answer would be clear, tournaments are better, but that is a pretty big leap of faith.

I guess one way to think about it is like this. Assume I am 2x as good as the average player in a $100 buyin tournament. So, my expectation is to win $200, and let's say I play an average of 4 hours per tourney, or $50 per hour. Or, about 1.67 BB/hour if I were playing 15/30. So, if these assumptions are good, it is pretty much a wash.

There are of course other factors to consider. I do think tournaments are more fun. I also think it is partr of the process to train for bigger goals in my poker life, so it is sort of necessity. The downside however is that they are much swingier, the hours are kind of weird/unflexible, and they are much more emotional to deal with.

I think I will definitely continue to strive for some type of mix, but maybe I should be playing more cash games from a strict dollar per hour basis. Lots to think about.

Math problem

2005-08-11T11:55:00.000-04:00

Was thinking about this on the subway yesterday with respect to my limit games. I'm currently 3-tabling 15/30, with a very solid win rate. I am over bankrolled for this level (according to traditional school of thought), and would like to move up when I feel more comfortable with my game.

In any case, assuming I had the standard 300 big bets in my bankroll, if I earn 2 BB/100, and play 3 tables how long will it take to move up to 20/40, 30/60, and beyond?

The answer: it would take only 16.67 hours of 15/30 to move up to 20/40, 25 hours of 20/40 to move up to 30/60, 33.33 hours of 30/60 to move up to 50/100, and 50 hours at 50/100 to move up to 100/200.

This is just a math problem and doesn't mean much, I just wanted to save the answers somewhere.

Hand to think about

2005-08-08T18:10:00.000-04:00

I thought the hand below which someone asked me to comment on was quite interesting, and I'm feeling stumped on the right answer. My recommendation initially was to open push the turn, but that I would have check-raised all-in on the flop. But I don't feel great about that answer. I'll post this here so I can think about it again later. This is from probably a $33 SnG.

No real reads on villain. His double up hand was against a guy where he had KK vs. KJ and the guy let him get all in on a J high ragged flop.

Seat 1: StL_RoXXorS ( $955 )
Seat 2: GimmeSuMo ( $780 )
Seat 5: curtjohn1999 ( $700 )
Seat 6: Jamison797 ( $2155 )
Seat 10: chanjr ( $1225 )
Seat 4: HERO ( $900 )
Seat 7: tiltada ( $1415 )
Seat 8: johngrahm54 ( $1870 )
Trny:14659004 Level:2
Blinds(15/30)
** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to HERO [ Tc Td ]
HERO raises [115].
curtjohn1999 folds.
Jamison797 folds.
tiltada folds.
johngrahm54 calls [115].
chanjr folds.
StL_RoXXorS folds.
GimmeSuMo folds.

** Dealing Flop ** [ Qd, Jd, Jh ]
HERO bets [150].
johngrahm54 calls [150].

** Dealing Turn ** [ Js ]
HERO ???

Another nice weekend

2005-08-08T11:10:00.000-04:00

Just concluded one of my better poker weekends from a profitability standpoint. The highlight was a 3rd place finish in the PokerStars $33 rebuy tournament which started at 1 am Saturday morning. Note to self: don't start 300 person tournaments at 1 am. I've posted the key showdown hands below. I invested $123 in the tournament, 3rd paid about $3300, which isn't a bad return. First would have been nicer, but I'm reasonbly happy with how I played. This combined with a continued nice run in the 15/30 games on Party (won 60 big bets on Sunday while reaching the money in a $109 on Party) made for a nice weeked.

Here are the hands:
getting things started out with a bang. Good thing it is a rebuy tourney

*********** # 5 **************
schulken: posts small blind 10
pens66: posts big blind 20

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Th Kh]
SrGuapo2: raises 40 to 60
Comps: calls 60
ppam: calls 60
konspirator: calls 60

*** FLOP *** [Tc 6h Ah]
SrGuapo2: bets 80
Comps: calls 80
ppam: folds
konspirator: folds

*** TURN *** [Tc 6h Ah] [6s]
SrGuapo2: checks
Comps: bets 200
SrGuapo2: raises 2660 to 2860 and is all-in
Comps: calls 1140 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Tc 6h Ah 6s] [As]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Th Kh] (two pair, Aces and Tens)
Comps: shows [Ad 5s] (a full house, Aces full of Sixes)

maybe this isn't my day
riversidejoe: posts small blind 10
brolandd: posts big blind 20

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Kd As]
SrGuapo2: raises 40 to 60
GrnMtn: calls 60
konspirator: calls 60
schulken: calls 60

*** FLOP *** [Jc Tc 2h]
SrGuapo2: bets 220
GrnMtn: folds
konspirator: folds
schulken: calls 220

*** TURN *** [Jc Tc 2h] [Qc]
SrGuapo2: bets 660
schulken: raises 740 to 1400
SrGuapo2: calls 580 and is all-in

*** RIVER *** [Jc Tc 2h Qc] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Kd As] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
schulken: shows [6c 5c] (a flush, Queen high)
now here is where the luckbox activates. This puts me up as an early chipleader
*********** # 9 **************
SrGuapo2: posts small blind 10
Comps: posts big blind 20

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ts Jc]
ppam: calls 20
konspirator: calls 20
riversidejoe: folds
brolandd: calls 20
SrGuapo2: calls 10
Comps: checks

*** FLOP *** [Qh Kc Ah]
SrGuapo2: bets 60
Comps: folds
ppam: calls 60
konspirator: raises 140 to 200
brolandd: calls 200
SrGuapo2: raises 1000 to 1200
ppam: calls 1140
brolandd: calls 1000

*** TURN *** [Qh Kc Ah] [3d]
SrGuapo2: bets 1720 and is all-in
ppam: raises 10 to 1730 and is all-in
brolandd: folds

*** RIVER *** [Qh Kc Ah 3d] [Qs]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Ts Jc] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
ppam: shows [7h Th] (a pair of Queens)
SrGuapo2 collected 7340 from pot

another odd hand
*********** # 20 **************
ppam: posts small blind 15
konspirator: posts big blind 30

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Kd Ac]
pens66: calls 30
riversidejoe: calls 30
SrGuapo2: raises 60 to 90
GrnMtn: calls 90
konspirator: calls 60
pens66: calls 60
riversidejoe: calls 60

*** FLOP *** [3s Jh As]
konspirator: checks
pens66: bets 180
riversidejoe: folds
SrGuapo2: raises 180 to 360
GrnMtn: folds
konspirator: folds
pens66: calls 180

*** TURN *** [3s Jh As] [Th]
SrGuapo2: bets 1560
pens66: calls 1560

*** RIVER *** [3s Jh As Th] [8d]
pens66: checks
SrGuapo2: checks

*** SHOW DOWN ***
pens66: shows [Ts Qs] (a pair of Tens)
SrGuapo2: shows [Kd Ac] (a pair of Aces)
SrGuapo2 collected 4305 from pot

*********** # 23 **************
pens66: posts small blind 15
riversidejoe: posts big blind 30

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Qh As]
SrGuapo2: raises 60 to 90
konspirator: raises 300 to 390
SrGuapo2: calls 300

*** FLOP *** [Qd 9c 6h]
SrGuapo2: bets 870
konspirator: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 825 from pot

luck box again. You'll see my record with showdowns this tourney is pretty good. Hard not to do well when you run hot on draws like this
*********** # 34 **************
PurplNrpl420: posts small blind 25
SrGuapo2: posts big blind 50

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Th Kh]
GrnMtn: raises 100 to 150
konspirator: calls 150
SrGuapo2: calls 100

*** FLOP *** [Jh Qc 7h]
SrGuapo2: bets 250
GrnMtn: raises 550 to 800
SrGuapo2: raises 8360 to 9160 and is all-in
GrnMtn: calls 1655 and is all-in

*** TURN *** [Jh Qc 7h] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [Jh Qc 7h Qh] [8c]

*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Th Kh] (a flush, King high)
GrnMtn: shows [Kc Qd] (three of a kind, Queens)
SrGuapo2 collected 5385 from pot

another fun one. I have such a massive chip lead relative to the table that I can make some loose calls like this. Nice when they hit
*********** # 44 **************
SrGuapo2: posts small blind 25
Comps: posts big blind 50

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [5c Ac]
riversidejoe: raises 200 to 250
PurplNrpl420: calls 250
SrGuapo2: calls 225
Comps: folds

*** FLOP *** [Jc 9s Kc]
SrGuapo2: bets 350
riversidejoe: folds
PurplNrpl420: raises 420 to 770 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 420

*** TURN *** [Jc 9s Kc] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [Jc 9s Kc 6c] [Kd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [5c Ac] (a flush, Ace high)
PurplNrpl420: shows [Qd Kh] (three of a kind, Kings)

SrGuapo2 collected 2340 from pot

*********** # 47 **************
PokerStars Game #2273739731: Tournament #10686573, Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2005/08/06 - 01:44:45 (ET)
Table '10686573 17' Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: PurplNrpl420 (1450 in chips)
Seat 2: SrGuapo2 (13310 in chips)
Seat 3: Comps (2095 in chips)
Seat 4: GrnMtn (2025 in chips)
Seat 5: ppam (2455 in chips)
Seat 6: konspirator (7645 in chips)
Seat 7: schulken (3700 in chips)
Seat 8: pens66 (4025 in chips)
Seat 9: riversidejoe (5315 in chips)
ppam: posts small blind 25
konspirator: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Td 9d]
SrGuapo2: calls 50
Comps: calls 50
ppam: calls 25
konspirator: checks
*** FLOP *** [3d Kd Jc]
ppam: checks
konspirator: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 100
Comps: folds
ppam: calls 100
konspirator: folds

*** TURN *** [3d Kd Jc] [Qc]
ppam: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 200
ppam: folds

*********** # 69 **************
jjmaddipper: posts small blind 75
PurplNrpl420: posts big blind 150

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Tc Ad]
SrGuapo2: calls 150
Ouch2Hot: raises 150 to 300
SrGuapo2: calls 150

*** FLOP *** [8d 4s 9s]
SrGuapo2: checks
Ouch2Hot: bets 150
SrGuapo2: raises 450 to 600
Ouch2Hot: calls 450

*** TURN *** [8d 4s 9s] [Jc]
SrGuapo2: checks
Ouch2Hot: checks

*** RIVER *** [8d 4s 9s Jc] [7h]
SrGuapo2: bets 1350
Ouch2Hot: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 2025 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

*********** # 70 **************
PurplNrpl420: posts small blind 75
SrGuapo2: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [2d Ts]
PurplNrpl420: calls 75
SrGuapo2: checks
*** FLOP *** [2s Tc Jh]
PurplNrpl420: bets 150
SrGuapo2: calls 150
*** TURN *** [2s Tc Jh] [5s]
PurplNrpl420: bets 350
SrGuapo2: raises 350 to 700
PurplNrpl420: folds

*********** # 80 **************
SrGuapo2: posts small blind 75
Comps: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ad Ts]
Ouch2Hot: raises 150 to 300
pens66: calls 300
SrGuapo2: calls 225
Comps: calls 150

*** FLOP *** [Qd Ac 7h]
SrGuapo2: bets 450
Comps: folds
Ouch2Hot: calls 450
pens66: folds

*** TURN *** [Qd Ac 7h] [Qh]
SrGuapo2: bets 1200
Ouch2Hot: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 2100 from pot

I think my first lost showdown. Had to happen sooner or later. Not upset with this, definitely didn't expect a full house here
*********** # 82 **************
GrnMtn: posts small blind 75
ppam: posts big blind 150

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Jd Ah]
Ouch2Hot: raises 450 to 600
SrGuapo2: calls 600
ppam: calls 450

*** FLOP *** [6c 4d As]
ppam: checks
Ouch2Hot: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 1050
ppam: calls 1050
Ouch2Hot: folds

*** TURN *** [6c 4d As] [Qc]
ppam: bets 1650
SrGuapo2: raises 1650 to 3300
ppam: calls 560 and is all-in

*** RIVER *** [6c 4d As Qc] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ppam: shows [4h 4s] (a full house, Fours full of Queens)
SrGuapo2: shows [Jd Ah] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
ppam collected 8395 from pot

around this point I'm maybe in the top 15 of 200 or so left, they move 2 of the top 5 to my table. Fortunately they were on my right. They didn't seem all that strong, but dampened my ability to steal a lot of pots for awhile

antes have no kicked in. here is a nice big hand
*********** # 115 **************
The Sandman: posts small blind 100
GrnMtn: posts big blind 200

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Kd Ad]
SrGuapo2: raises 400 to 600
GrnMtn: calls 400

*** FLOP *** [4d 3d 2c]
GrnMtn: bets 2000
SrGuapo2: raises 2000 to 4000
GrnMtn: raises 4700 to 8700 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 4700

*** TURN *** [4d 3d 2c] [Ah]
*** RIVER *** [4d 3d 2c Ah] [Jd]

*** SHOW DOWN ***
GrnMtn: shows [Ac 7c] (a pair of Aces)
SrGuapo2: shows [Kd Ad] (a flush, Ace high)

I experimented a lot during this tourney with min-raises to represent something stronger than I had. Seems to have worked here, or maybe he was just really weak. He was one of the few who outchipped me, but I think I regained the lead with this hand.
*********** # 140 **************
The Sandman: posts small blind 200
milkshakeman: posts big blind 400

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Jc Ah]
WurmX: raises 600 to 1000
SrGuapo2: calls 1000

*** FLOP *** [Qd Jd Qs]
WurmX: bets 1500
SrGuapo2: raises 1500 to 3000
WurmX: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 5825 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

*********** # 142 **************
oogee: posts small blind 200
konspirator: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Jd Kd]
Ouch2Hot: raises 400 to 800
SrGuapo2: calls 800

*** FLOP *** [Td Kc 5h]
Ouch2Hot: bets 1600
SrGuapo2: raises 4000 to 5600 (I thought I was putting him all in but didn't move the slider enough)
Ouch2Hot: calls 4000

*** TURN *** [Td Kc 5h] [Ah]
Ouch2Hot: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 5200
Ouch2Hot: calls 1075 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Td Kc 5h Ah] [9h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ouch2Hot: shows [7c Ks] (a pair of Kings)
SrGuapo2: shows [Jd Kd] (a pair of Kings - Jack kicker)
SrGuapo2 collected 15775 from pot

this hand I think put me near the top of the tourney leaderboard, and more importantly now I dominate the table in chips heading towards bubble time
*********** # 187 **************
stocktrader7: posts small blind 600
Ricko101: posts big blind 1200

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [As Kh]
SrGuapo2: raises 2400 to 3600
skutch1220: calls 3600
Ricko101: calls 2400

*** FLOP *** [6d 8c Ac]
Ricko101: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 10800
skutch1220: calls 10800
Ricko101: folds

*** TURN *** [6d 8c Ac] [4h]
SrGuapo2: bets 15950 and is all-in
skutch1220: calls 15950
*** RIVER *** [6d 8c Ac 4h] [Qh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [As Kh] (a pair of Aces)
skutch1220: shows [Jc Kc] (high card Ace)
SrGuapo2 collected 65500 from pot

perhaps I could have extracted a little more value here
*********** # 197 **************
57offesq: posts small blind 600
SrGuapo2: posts big blind 1200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [9s Th]
skutch1220: calls 1200
HilliardBoy: calls 1200
Ricko101: calls 1200
57offesq: calls 600
SrGuapo2: checks

*** FLOP *** [9c Ts 2s]
57offesq: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 2400
skutch1220: folds
HilliardBoy: folds
Ricko101: folds
57offesq: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 6600 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

Table conditions were now perfect.
SrGuapo2: posts small blind 1000
skutch1220: posts big blind 2000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [7d 5c]
SrGuapo2: raises 4000 to 6000
skutch1220: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 4700 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

I thought my limp was awfully suspicious, but it worked
*********** # 218 **************
J9offsuit: posts small blind 1000
Looking Down: posts big blind 2000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ad As]
SrGuapo2: calls 2000
oogee: raises 13620 to 15620 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 13620
*** FLOP *** [4c 7c Qc]
*** TURN *** [4c 7c Qc] [3s]
*** RIVER *** [4c 7c Qc 3s] [7d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Ad As] (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
oogee: shows [Ts Jc] (a pair of Sevens)
SrGuapo2 collected 35040 from pot

this puts me way in the lead
*********** # 223 **************
skutch1220: posts small blind 1500
gorky3: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ks Ac]
SrGuapo2: raises 6000 to 9000
skutch1220: raises 28248 to 37248 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 28248
*** FLOP *** [8d Ad Jd]
*** TURN *** [8d Ad Jd] [9c]
*** RIVER *** [8d Ad Jd 9c] [6h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
skutch1220: shows [Ts Td] (a pair of Tens)
SrGuapo2: shows [Ks Ac] (a pair of Aces)
SrGuapo2 collected 78396 from pot

moved to a new table sometime around here. I am 2nd in chips, and of course they move the chipleader to my left. Things don't start so well. Still, I was convinced this guy wasn't very good and continued to engage him after this hand despite the risks to my stack
*********** # 228 **************
SrGuapo2: posts small blind 1500
C.K.: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [7h 4d]
SrGuapo2: raises 6000 to 9000
C.K.: calls 6000
*** FLOP *** [5d Qs 9d]
SrGuapo2: bets 6000
C.K.: calls 6000
*** TURN *** [5d Qs 9d] [Qc]
SrGuapo2: checks
C.K.: checks
*** RIVER *** [5d Qs 9d Qc] [8d]
SrGuapo2: bets 9000
C.K.: raises 39000 to 48000
SrGuapo2: folds
C.K. collected 49350 from pot

This hand is kind of strangely played by me. Not my proudest moment. I started this hand with about 115K in chips, this would have been a disaster without the miracle river. Maybe I should have check-raised the river here. This hand puts me back in the chip lead with 20 or so left. ITM at 36, only satisfied with a top 5 finish
*********** # 231 **************
ringpop: posts small blind 1500
jad925: posts big blind 3000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Qs As]
Looking Down: raises 9000 to 12000
SrGuapo2: calls 12000
C.K.: calls 12000
gorky3: folds
ringpop: folds
jad925: folds
*** FLOP *** [4s Ks Td]
Looking Down: checks
SrGuapo2: checks
C.K.: bets 23000
Looking Down: folds
SrGuapo2: calls 23000
*** TURN *** [4s Ks Td] [2c]
SrGuapo2: checks
C.K.: bets 23000
SrGuapo2: calls 23000
*** RIVER *** [4s Ks Td 2c] [3s]
SrGuapo2: bets 45000
C.K. said, "nice hit"
C.K.: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 133700 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

funny chat afterwards:
C.K. said, "u could at least check raise ur flush"
SrGuapo2 said, "who says i had a flush"
C.K. said, "god knows"
C.K. said, "u were bluffing i know ok"

continuing to pick on C.K.
*********** # 245 **************
gorky3: posts small blind 1500
ringpop: posts big blind 3000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ks Jh]
SrGuapo2: calls 3000
C.K.: calls 3000
gorky3: folds
ringpop: checks
*** FLOP *** [2s 6h 8h]
ringpop: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 3000
C.K.: calls 3000
ringpop: folds

*** TURN *** [2s 6h 8h] [5h]
SrGuapo2: checks
C.K.: bets 12000
SrGuapo2: calls 12000

*** RIVER *** [2s 6h 8h 5h] [Qc]
SrGuapo2: bets 6000
C.K.: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 41550 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

This is just terrible on my part. Lucky to be in a coinflip situation, but still a terrible play on my part. I guess in my defense at this point I have a big enough chip lead that losing doesn't really matter much (I'd still have the chip lead).
*********** # 252 **************
Seat 8: SrGuapo2 (239376 in chips)
Seat 9: C.K. (44126 in chips)

gorky3: posts small blind 2000
ringpop: posts big blind 4000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [6c Ac]
SrGuapo2: raises 8000 to 12000
C.K.: raises 31926 to 43926 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 31926
*** FLOP *** [Kd 3s 7c]
*** TURN *** [Kd 3s 7c] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [Kd 3s 7c Qh] [Qc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [6c Ac] (a pair of Queens)
C.K.: shows [5c 5d] (two pair, Queens and Fives)
C.K. collected 95252 from pot
SrGuapo2 said, "oops"

Another terrible hand by me. My confidence in doing well in this tournament gets a little fractured here
*********** # 256 **************
RedInferno: posts small blind 2000
SrGuapo2: posts big blind 4000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [5h 5s]
J9offsuit: raises 8000 to 12000
RedInferno: raises 10655 to 22655 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 18655
J9offsuit: raises 23333 to 45988 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 23333

*** FLOP *** [4s 9h Kh]
*** TURN *** [4s 9h Kh] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [4s 9h Kh 2d] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [5h 5s] (a pair of Fives)
J9offsuit: shows [As Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
RedInferno: shows [Jd Js] (a pair of Jacks)

And here is the true disaster hand of the tournament. In the top 3 or so of about 15 left here. No excuses for this hand
*********** # 275 **************
davetard: posts small blind 3000
WurmX: posts big blind 6000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ad Ts]
SrGuapo2: raises 12000 to 18000
WurmX: raises 41844 to 59844 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 41844

*** FLOP *** [Jd Kd 4s]
*** TURN *** [Jd Kd 4s] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [Jd Kd 4s 7d] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
WurmX: shows [Ks Ac] (a pair of Kings)
SrGuapo2: shows [Ad Ts] (high card Ace)
SrGuapo2 said, "oops"

Final table now, but I'm in last place by a big margin. Got some help here. Gotta love CK (who built up a massive chip lead at the other table with 2 tables left)
*********** # 293 **************
PokerStars Game #2274622149: Tournament #10686573, Hold'em No Limit -
C.K.: posts small blind 4000
UHA GAMBLER: posts big blind 8000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Ac 7s]
SrGuapo2: raises 44749 to 52749 and is all-in
C.K.: calls 48749

*** FLOP *** [7d 7c 5d]
*** TURN *** [7d 7c 5d] [5s]
BeL0WaB0Ve is sitting out
fundmanager [observer] said, "nice cflop!"
BeL0WaB0Ve has returned
BeL0WaB0Ve is sitting out
*** RIVER *** [7d 7c 5d 5s] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
C.K.: shows [Ks Kc] (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
SrGuapo2: shows [Ac 7s] (a full house, Sevens full of Fives)
SrGuapo2 collected 116698 from pot

Glad to avoid some damage here
*********** # 301 **************
C.K.: posts small blind 4000
UHA GAMBLER: posts big blind 8000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Jc Ks]
ekanes01: raises 16000 to 24000
SrGuapo2: calls 24000
UHA GAMBLER: raises 195141 to 219141 and is all-in
ekanes01: calls 102102 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: folds

*** FLOP *** [4c 3d 9s]
*** TURN *** [4c 3d 9s] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [4c 3d 9s 6h] [9h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
UHA GAMBLER: shows [Ad Ac] (two pair, Aces and Nines)
ekanes01: shows [Ah Th] (a pair of Nines)
UHA GAMBLER collected 283404 from pot

last hand I played until we were four handed. Amazing watching these guys just knock each other out instead of putting pressure on me.
*********** # 304 **************
Seat 1: JBert88 (241687 in chips)
Seat 2: WurmX (160676 in chips)
Seat 3: davetard (259074 in chips)
Seat 4: SrGuapo2 (131098 in chips)
Seat 5: BeL0WaB0Ve (227409 in chips)
Seat 6: C.K. (221913 in chips)
Seat 8: UHA GAMBLER (371643 in chips)

WurmX: posts small blind 4000
davetard: posts big blind 8000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Qc Qs]
SrGuapo2: raises 8000 to 16000 (minraise UTG)
JBert88: calls 16000
*** FLOP *** [2c Tc 4d]
SrGuapo2: bets 48000
JBert88: folds
SrGuapo2 collected 46800 from pot
SrGuapo2: doesn't show hand

Four handed, semi-seriously, I proposed an even chop. No one said anything. I bet CK regrets this
SrGuapo2 said, "even chop guys?"

Seat 1: JBert88 (325163 in chips)
Seat 4: SrGuapo2 (101098 in chips)
Seat 6: C.K. (437865 in chips)
Seat 8: UHA GAMBLER (749374 in chips)

making my move back into the chip lead. Just a desperation play first
*********** # 320 **************
PokerStars Game #2274668383: Tournament #10686573, Hold'em No Limit -
UHA GAMBLER: posts small blind 6000
JBert88: posts big blind 12000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Qh 8s]
SrGuapo2: raises 87898 to 99898 and is all-in
UHA GAMBLER: calls 93898
JBert88: folds

*** FLOP *** [Tc Jc Js]
*** TURN *** [Tc Jc Js] [As]
*** RIVER *** [Tc Jc Js As] [Qd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
UHA GAMBLER: shows [3h 3c] (two pair, Jacks and Threes)
SrGuapo2: shows [Qh 8s] (two pair, Queens and Jacks)
SrGuapo2 collected 214196 from pot

CK, feel stupid for not chopping?
*********** # 324 **************
Seat 1: JBert88 (324563 in chips)
Seat 4: SrGuapo2 (238796 in chips)
Seat 6: C.K. (368865 in chips)
Seat 8: UHA GAMBLER (681276 in chips)
JBert88: posts the ante 600
SrGuapo2: posts the ante 600
C.K.: posts the ante 600
UHA GAMBLER: posts the ante 600
UHA GAMBLER: posts small blind 6000
JBert88: posts big blind 12000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Qs Ks]
SrGuapo2: raises 36000 to 48000
C.K.: calls 48000
UHA GAMBLER: folds
JBert88: folds

*** FLOP *** [Ad Qd Tc]
SrGuapo2: bets 190196 and is all-in
C.K.: calls 190196

*** TURN *** [Ad Qd Tc] [8s]
*** RIVER *** [Ad Qd Tc 8s] [6h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Qs Ks] (a pair of Queens)
C.K.: shows [Jd 8d] (a pair of Eights)
SrGuapo2 collected 496792 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 496792 | Rake 0
Board [Ad Qd Tc 8s 6h]
Seat 1: JBert88 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: SrGuapo2 showed [Qs Ks] and won (496792) with a pair of Queens
Seat 6: C.K. (button) showed [Jd 8d] and lost with a pair of Eights
Seat 8: UHA GAMBLER (small blind) folded before Flop

Hello chiplead
*********** # 339 **************
Seat 1: JBert88 (409163 in chips)
Seat 4: SrGuapo2 (505192 in chips)
Seat 6: C.K. (96469 in chips)
Seat 8: UHA GAMBLER (602676 in chips)

JBert88: posts the ante 600
SrGuapo2: posts the ante 600
C.K.: posts the ante 600
UHA GAMBLER: posts the ante 600
C.K.: posts small blind 6000
UHA GAMBLER: posts big blind 12000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Kc Ks]
JBert88: folds
SrGuapo2: raises 36000 to 48000
C.K.: raises 47869 to 95869 and is all-in
UHA GAMBLER: calls 83869
SrGuapo2: raises 408723 to 504592 and is all-in
UHA GAMBLER: folds

*** FLOP *** [7c 8h 7s]
*** TURN *** [7c 8h 7s] [Kd]
*** RIVER *** [7c 8h 7s Kd] [8d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***

C.K.: shows [Ac 8s] (a full house, Eights full of Sevens)
SrGuapo2: shows [Kc Ks] (a full house, Kings full of Eights)

I thought about proposing a chop again, but didn't and regret it a little after this disaster. This just sucks, nothing else to say, I just felt like it was worth the gamble.
-----------------------
JBert88: posts small blind 6000
SrGuapo2: posts big blind 12000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [8d Tc]
UHA GAMBLER: folds
JBert88: raises 24000 to 36000
SrGuapo2: calls 24000

*** FLOP *** [Jd Kh 9h]
JBert88: checks
SrGuapo2: bets 48000
JBert88: raises 108000 to 156000
SrGuapo2: calls 108000
*** TURN *** [Jd Kh 9h] [4d]
JBert88: bets 251963 and is all-in
SrGuapo2: calls 251963

*** RIVER *** [Jd Kh 9h 4d] [5c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
JBert88: shows [Kd 9s] (two pair, Kings and Nines)
SrGuapo2: shows [8d Tc] (high card King)
JBert88 collected 889726 from pot

and my final hand. Can't feel bad about this one.
*********** # 347 **************
PokerStars Game #2274694917: Tournament #10686573, Hold'em No Limit - Level XVIII (10000/20000) - 2005/08/06 - 05:41:23 (ET)
Table '10686573 9' Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: JBert88 (977126 in chips)
Seat 4: SrGuapo2 (254767 in chips)
Seat 8: UHA GAMBLER (381607 in chips)
JBert88: posts the ante 1000
SrGuapo2: posts the ante 1000
UHA GAMBLER: posts the ante 1000
SrGuapo2: posts small blind 10000
UHA GAMBLER: posts big blind 20000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SrGuapo2 [Qh Qd]
JBert88: raises 20000 to 40000
SrGuapo2: raises 20000 to 60000
UHA GAMBLER: folds
JBert88: raises 180000 to 240000
SrGuapo2: raises 13767 to 253767 and is all-in
JBert88: calls 13767

*** FLOP *** [4c 3d Kh]
SrGuapo2 said, "no!"
UHA GAMBLER said, "gg"
*** RIVER *** [4c 3d Kh 7h] [Ks]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
SrGuapo2: shows [Qh Qd] (two pair, Kings and Queens)
JBert88: shows [As Ac] (two pair, Aces and Kings)

Ego check

2005-08-01T17:44:00.000-04:00

Offline someone responded to my post below with this, which is something good to keep in mind:

Since you've now played limit 15/30 for a grand total of one month I suspect you are overestimating your skill level and win rate. I could be wrong and you may be a natural but odds say that you are running good and that you have some seriously negative ev catchup waiting for you.

My response is that my latest heater just catches me up after my post WSOP drawdown, so it has just been positive EV catchup rather than impending doom, if you want to think about it that way. Still, there is some potential truth to what Anonymous says to me here, now it is my goal to prove him wrong!

Back in the saddle

2005-08-01T17:37:00.000-04:00

This weekend was the first where I had substantial time to devote to tournaments since coming back from the WSOP, and my first with my new multi-tabling machine (a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 1920x1200 resolution), so I was stoked to get some hands in.

Friday, I played the $215 buy-in Friday Special on Party and the $109, 400ish person midnight tourney on Party.

The Friday special was a non-eventful waste of time. I can't think of a single interesting hand or how exactly I busted out. I made it about half way though the 2000 person field. I was able to acquire some chips early from a very bad player when my middle pair beat his middle pair. Other than that I just flamed out as the blinds increased and I lost a few small pots here and there.

The $109 Friday tourney was a little more exciting. First hand of the tournament that I play I'm dealt 77 in middle position. UTG raises, I call, and we see the flop headsup. Flop is Q77, giving me the nuts. I rarely slowplay, but really wanted to get the maximum here, and quads is an excellent hand to slow play as the flop will look bluffable if I feign weakness against the right type of player.

He makes a half pot sized bet, I call. Turn is a low card, he bets the pot, which puts more than half of his stack in, and I call. River is another brick, he goes all-in, I call, double up and send someone home right away. He had of course an unimproved AK. Brilliant.

From there I just played extremely tight as the pots were too small to justify the risk in many places, while always leaving me the option to get more aggressive at my whim. It is a great position to be in, one that I don't often find myself in because you usually have to play like a lucky maniac to get there.

By the time 2/3rd of the field was gone, I believe I had about 4500 chips up from the starting 1000, which put me well ahead of the average when the following hand came up.

I am dealt AhKh on the button. Early position player goes all in for a small amount of chips, say 600 when the big blind was 300 (this is from memory and could be off, but magnitude is close), I raise to 1500 and am happy to just isolate this guy. However, BB calls the 1500. BB has me outchipped. Flop has two hearts, all cards small or medium sized. He checks, I make a big bet to try to scare him away, he reraises me all-in. I feel I have to call here. I have two overcards and the nut flush draw. If I lose I'm out, if I win I'm near the chiplead. I think this is a very reasonable gamble, and doing the math a good call unless he has AA or KK. Of course he flips up AA and I get no help. Kind of upsetting but I was happy with my decisions.

Saturday night played the $109 rebuy tournament on Stars. This is my favorite online tournament, and I would like to play this tournament at every opportunity. The buyin is $109, and gives you 1500 in starting chips. Then any time in the first hour if you are at 1500 or below, you can spend an additional $100 to get another 1500 chips, and finally, at the end of the first hour you can pay $100 for an extra 2000 chips.

These tournaments can get very expensive, but the rebuys go in the prize pool so it is all equitable. The advantage to these is because of the rebuys, the chips/blinds ratio is a lot better throughout the tourney, minimizing the luck factor, and the players in these are all well capitalized, so the bad beat factor is more limited. Of course though, the competition is tougher but I am not so easily intimidated.

My strategy during the rebuy period (and during all tournaments) is just to adjust to the table conditions. If people are gambling and rebuying like crazy, I'll tighten up and try to win some big pots from the gamblers. If people are tight and not rebuying, I will play a little looser and try to build up chips.

My table was reasonably wild, but nothing too crazy. Overall I didn't play much. Only big hand I did play was QQ one off the button. EP player with 1500 just open pushes, I call (I have 3000 after doing the initial rebuy). He has TT, but sucks out a set and I rebuy. Very annoying beat, but I'll rebuy and win it back over time.

I did the add-on at the end of the rebuy period, and had 5500 chips (or a $409 investment). This puts me somewhat behind the average, which is no big deal. We started with 72 players, and now have about 55.

For the next hour, I don't know if I really played any hands. Just stole blinds a bit to stay level.

Towards the end of the hour when I am falling well below average with about 40 players left in the tournament, I am dealt JJ in late position. EP raiser, I call and we take it headsup. Flop is 3h 4d 5d. He bets the pot. I hate this spot, but I raise, he calls. Tough to know where I am in this hand. My thought process now is that I've basically committed myself here with all I've put in, but I have no idea where I stand and am probably going to have to put it all in, and probably lose.

Turn is a blank, like the 7s. He bets half the pot, I move in, he calls. I figure with 80% certainty I am dead. He flips up Ad3d, so he has a monster of a draw, but I'm still ahead. He doesn't get there on the river, and I double up to get over 10K in chips.

Man, what a great feeling.

From there to the final table, I just played very aggressively as players were overly tight around the bubble. I built my stack up from around 12K to near 25K without a single showdown, and very few flops. Blinds and antes were being more and more a factor, and the tables were remarkably passive. I came into the final table around average stack size with not a huge variance in the stack sizes, so basically anyone's game now that we were in the money. Top 9 paid a range of 800 for 9th and around $8,500 for 1st.

However, final table was a semi-disaster. I initially was doing a good job with steals and resteals and was further building my stack up to around 40K. Then all those good steals turned into one very bad one.

I'm in the BB with 8s5s. All fold to SB who is the smallest stack with 15K. He makes a strange raise (it was too small, but I don't remember the exact size). This either means a monster or a pathetic attempt to steal the dead money in the pot. I had made this move before against him and it worked, and I tried it again, I reraised all-in expecting him to fold. He of course insta-calls with AA and it holds up. This didn't cripple me that bad, but I felt kind of stupid. I don't think my play was unreasonable, but what can you do.

From there I had a few more failed blind steals, a few more successful ones, but found myself eventually with the smallest stack in 7th place. Stacks still weren't that far apart though, and 7th-4th place all had similar stack sizes and were within a double up of the top 3.

I get AJo UTG and raise all-in (BB was about 4K, I had about 20K in chips). The cutoff calls with KK, and try as I may I can't suck out an Ace, and I'm out in 7th place with around $1300 in prize money. After two more busted out shortly after me, they did a 4-way chop for $4K each.

It was a very disappointing finish as I wasn't all that happy with my play, and could have easily done better and made a lot more money. It hurts a lot more than busting out in the first hour.

It is nice of course to win some prize money. This would still go in my top 10 cash finishes in a tournament. But let's do some math:

Take the three tourneys I played this weekend, it is a combined time spent playing of about 8 hours of playing (some overlapped though). I made 1300, less 700 of buyins. That's only about $75 an hour for a lot of frustration.

Now consider the opportunity cost, instead of having those tournaments open, let's say I had 15/30 games going where I've been running positive 5 BB per hour, but let's shave that to 3, or $90 an hour. Add to that that tournaments in late stages require me to close all the other games, instead of 3-tabling, so I'm giving up well over $100 an hour in opportunity cost. In other words, although I had a reasonably successful tournament weekend, I'm actually costing myself money by not playing more 15/30 (numbers subject to fudging).

There is also the time factor. I have total freedom over my start and end times in a cash game, but no so in tournaments, which may have contributed to my poor final table performance.

The positive side of tournaments is that they are more fun, and at times can swing extremely positively. Had I won the rebuy tournament, I'd have made over $1000 an hour for the weekend.

The problem though with all of this is it is extremely difficult given my small sample size to determine my true tournament equity to make a better cash game vs. tournament game EV calculation. I used to think I was better off playing in tournaments because my downside was capped and the risk/reward was very strong, but now my higher hourly rate playing 15/30 swings things the other way.

Of course this should all be read with the caveat I am running extremely well at 15/30, all though I essentially broke even over 4 sessions this weekend.

I guess we'll see if anything changes but I imagine I will continue to play tournaments, but maybe not as much. I certainly can't justify anything without a reasonably high buyin, which limits things considerably.

The blogfather

2005-07-26T23:32:00.000-04:00

Wow the blogfather gave me a linky, thanks Iggy!

Definition of a pro?

2005-07-19T12:30:00.000-04:00

Funny, if I google search my real name, it is now dominated by poker related items vs. prior real job related items. Does this mean I am a poker pro?

Had another beautiful session of 15/30 last night. Made about 60 big bets in about 90 minutes. Cards were behaving, mostly competitors were doing too much calling and not enough folding. Kind of sad to say, but most one's poker profit comes from not his own brilliance but the dumb decisions of others. Whatever, I'll take it.

Heater

2005-07-14T14:29:00.000-04:00

Yesterday went on a massive heater. Feels great after the anti-heater that was Vegas.

Started out by signing up for the morning $109 limit tourney on Party Poker. Now, limit is not my game and I don't know if I have that great of a fundamental understanding of how to play, but that's what was available, and the field was small so what the heck.

As I started the tournament, I played in a a 3/6 Omaha 8/b game, and won 20 BB (or 20*6, or $120). Not bad, now freerolling in the limit tournament.

I decided I was unsatisfied with 3/6, so I looked for something bigger, but it was all either 6-max, way full, or way empty, so I decided to play some limit HE. For some reason, I decide on 15/30, which is much bigger than I should be playing relative to my background in the game.

Anyway, won 25 big bets, or $750.

Closed the game as I made the final table in the limit tournament. Went on to win the limit tournament for $1600 payday. Felt underwhelming, but that's is the 3rd or 4th biggest score I've acheived in a tournament.

After that was over, played 15/30 limit HE again for another 30 big bets.

All told, over $3000 for maybe four hours of poker work. When it is easy, it is easy. I bought a new laptop suitable for multi-tabling to celebrate.

WSOP Day 2

2005-07-14T14:28:00.000-04:00

Here is my Day 2 report:

Well, day 2 wasn't as much fun as day 1.

Started out the day with 13,300 25 minutes into level 8 (300/600 with 75 antes). I wasn't getting very good cards for the rest of the level, but was stealing enough to end the level at 13,600.

Surprisingly I started at the table with about 3 stacks smaller than mine. The only person I recognized was the Allyn Shulman, the wife I think of the guy who runs Card Player magazine. There was one massive stack who's name I believe is Bo Schlestedt, some Swede. Later in the day I heard him explain to someone that he won a big tournament in Europe, has lots of endorsements, doesn't pay tournament entries, etc, etc. He was very good.

First hand of the level someone busts, third hand Bo busts two more.

Not sure if this was in that level, but definitely the most amazing hand I've seen. Player on my immediate right raises a standard amount, I fold, player on my immediate left goes all in for a small amount more, first player calls. Player on my right flips over AsKs, player on my left shows AcKc. Flop is JcQcTs. Turn is the Js, putting two royal flush draws on the board. River is of course the Qs, giving him a runner runner royal flush. It was probabably the most amazing hand one could produce, and it didn't happen on the Internet.

Next level (400/800/100), more of the same, I ended the level with just under 13K. No real playable hands, just a bunch of stealing. For whatever reason until my final level, I don't think I took a single hand to showdown. 95% of hands through went to whoever raised preflop, so that was that.

After the one guy got busted out when his royal didn't come. He was replaced by a massive stack. So, on my immediate left and his immediate left were I believe two of the biggest chipstacks in the tournament. Both played really well too, although I probably would have been even more aggressive. My guess is these two guys are going to go far.

Onto my final level, 500/1000/200. I was shocked when I saw the antes were doubling, I knew that I would have to make a move this level or I was done. Fortunately, early I get AA in the SB. A player who slightly outchips me moves in ahead of me. I of course call and hope the BB calls as well to triple me up. He folds and I double up against the initial pusher, who was stealing with total garbage.

Next hand I played was my bustout hand.

I am in the SB again and get dealt QQ. Bo, the Swedish pro guy raises UTG. He wasn't very loose, but I felt he could have a wide range of cards here, and I felt good about QQ against that range. Action folds to me. So blinds are 500/1000, he raised to 3500. I have about 22K. I could call, I could do a standard raise, or I could push.

I didn't think calling was a reasonable option. Although I had recently doubled up to over 20K, average in the tourney at this point must be 50-60K, so I really need to find spots to accumulate chips, so I am definitely reraising here. If I reraise, I don't want to do a min raise, so I'm going to have to raise it up to about 10K at a minimum. But if I raise it 10K, and he calls, I will have to play out of position, and likely have to check/fold if an A or K flops and he bets big, while leaving myself with 10K which is pretty much dead at this point. So, I felt I was trapped in a situation where I had to go all-in.

So push I did, and he thought long and hard. He muttered something that if I had AA, I would have hesitated more before betting. He has more that 150K chips here and decides to call. He turns over AK.

Flop is fine, but turn is a K and river is a blank and IGHN.

I guess it is easy to second guess yourself but I'm sure there is a better way to play the hand. Knowing what the flop cards are, I should have done a stop-go type manuever and I probably could have gotten him to lay down his hand, but I don't think it is a reasonable way to think about the hand. I do know I got my money in with best hand, and that's about as good as I can do.

I went out in around the high 900s place. I guess it feels good to have outlasted 4/5ths of the field. I made it about 6 hrs or halfway through day 2. I'm reasonably happy with this performance, but there is always the hope that you cash big.

I do have a bigger appreciation for the luck factor involved in winning a 5000+ person tournament. Yes, it absolutely takes tremendous poker skill to get through all those people, but the amount of luck you need is enourmous. That statement seems very self evident, but I have a much bigger appreciation for it.

I feel my biggest downfall in the tournament was due to the table makeup of my two tables, it was pretty much impossible to ever accumulate chips. I felt I encountered very little totally dead money, but it was there and someone was able to pick it up, and those people will go very far in the tournament. I'm sure some pro found a table with 5 internet nits who won big freerolls who gave their money away in level 1. It is tough to compete against that.

I enjoyed the experience however and right now expect to be back next year, and maybe try to satellite into other 10K events around the country. At some point I can get lucky.

WSOP Day 1

2005-07-14T14:26:00.000-04:00

Here is my WSOP day 1 report written on Saturday (my day 1 was Friday):

So yesterday I played in Day 1b of the WSOP ME. I had been to the Rio on two prior occasions during the WSOP so I pretty much knew what I was in for atmosphere wise. I arrived a bit early on the Party Poker bus from the MGM Grand and made my way over to my seat, seat 9, table 132.

By the time we started, everyone was there. I would estimate my table was made up of 4 internet qualifiers, maybe two people who seemed to have live-satellited in, and the remainders either pros or people who seemed very experienced with these big tournaments. The only one I recognized was Mark Mache (http://www.worldpokertour.com/playerslounge/gallery/index.php?pid=713&search=mark), who was seated on my immediate right.

We start with 10K in chips, first blind level is 25/50. Overall not a good level for me. Early on, the thing I had trouble with was trying to properly strategize about how to play such a massive amount of chips relative to the blinds. Do I play really loose, really tight, etc, etc. I mostly just played solid, tight aggressive play throughout the day, but the nerves were really affecting me the first level. The cards weren't really cooperating, and I also thought the table was probably tougher than average. One of the internet qualifiers was clearly very inexperienced, but everyone else definitely knew what they were doing. After yesterday, I have a deeper respect that the overlay I get in online tournaments is more a function of how poorly opponents play than how good I play.

Can't think of many memorable hands the first level. One I did misplay was the only time I was dealt KK yesterday. I was on the button, do a standard raise. Get reraised in the small blind. My standard play here would be to rereraise, but I was just scared and called. Flop is A33, he bets big into me and I have to fold.

All told I ended level 1 with about 6500 in chips. However, by the end of the level I felt comfortable and still had a lot of chips relative to the blinds.

Next blind level (50/100) stayed about exactly flat, which was impressive because I know with certainty I was dealt zero playable hands. Not a single pair, not a single big Ax. I managed to steal the blinds a few times to keep flat. I felt I was playing a much better game and was getting better at feeling out my opponents, so I wasn't that concerned with not accumulating chips at this point.

I was starting to get concerned with the table makeup as no one had been busted yet, while a lot were being busted out of the tourney. I don't think anyone busted from my table until level 4, so it was very difficult for anyone to accumulate chips. While I was one of the shorter stacks, no one had a big stack.

Next level (100/200) things got a little more interesting. One of the first hands I donked off a bunch of chips. Was dealt 88 one off the button, but the BB called. He had been consistently defending his blinds against me, so I didn't really know what to think of his calls. Flop was raggedy maybe one overcard and rainbow, he checked, I bet, he called. Turn was Xc putting two clubs on the board, and the action went check-check. River was a deuce of clubs. He bets 1000 into probably a 3000ish pot. I felt he could easily be bluffing here, and he didn't seem very strong elsewhere in the hand, and EV wise I felt I should make a call. Call I did, he turns over AcKc and wins with the nut flush. I felt pretty dumb with my pair of eights. Oh well, but starting to get worried. Maybe this was all for the best though as it was probably the first hand I took to showdown, and I think the table generally though I made a terrible call.

But shortly after I won a pot (I do not remember what it was) that essentially reversed the damage of the prior hand.

Then maybe a half hour later, was dealt As5s in MP and raise. The weak internet player on the button calls, as does the BB. The BB was a female pro who was very fun to play with that mentioned heading into the WSOP was the number 3 rated female tourney player, but has since been passed up by Cyndy Violette (who was seated a table over, who looks very good in person, certainly relative to other pros I saw).

Anyway, I flop the nut flush and successfully get my flop value bet paid off by both players. The turn is another spade, I make a bigger value bet, Internet donk calls (he has definitely put in a majority of his stack at this point, and the female pro figures out what is going on and folds. River is a brick, I only have about 2000 left and go all-in, he has to call IMO, but of course folds. This puts me up to around 9000 where I end the level.

Now it is level 4, the last before dinner break. Blinds are still 100/200 now with a 25 ante. Interesting how as soon as the ante level starts, although it is only 25, the called all-ins (dealers had to announce called all-ins for ESPN), started increasing exponentially. Just one memorable hand this level. I am dealt AKo on the button. All fold to me and I raise. SB folds. BB had about a half hour earlier lost a big pot and had about 6000 chips. What happened was a potentially steaming player two to my right moved all-in the hand after losing a big pot. BB player called with AK, steaming player had QQ and doubled up. Anyway, BB reraised all-in. After thinking about it a little bit, I decided to call. BB turned over TT, which is pretty much what I expected. Fortunately, I flopped and turned Aces, and busted the poor guy. ESPN has it on film.

Side note: earlier Mark Mache was crippled when he called what the table and I thought was an obvious AA with KK. Replacing him on my immediate right was none other than Mimi Rogers. Now, I am usually pretty good at this stuff, but I had no idea who she was. After awhile with all the media attention I figured out who she was. In any case, let me know if you see any pictures of her playing at the WSOP, I'm probably in them. She was very nice and played very well too. She unfortunately got sucked out on after she called an all-in from the horrible Internet player.

So after that level entered dinner break with about 14000 in chips. I would have been embarrassed to not make the dinner break, so now I was pretty happy. I felt I could bust out any time after and be happy with my performance.

After dinner, blinds were 150/300 with 25 antes. Don't remember anything from this level, had no playable cards but stole a few pots to leave the level with 14700.

Next level was 200/400 with 50 antes. I was getting a little annoyed with my cards, having not seen many good premium starting hands all day. Finally, got dealt my first AA in the SB. MP, a solid tricky player raises standard raise, I reraise 2x. He thinks for a little and puts me all in (he had maybe 2x my chips), I of course insta-call. He has KK and I hold up to get to my high water mark of around 31,000. Felt great of course, but I liked the guy and he was really beating himself up over not folding.

At this point around midnight, my mind is pretty much jelly after playing more than 12 hours. I was definitely exhausted, but so was the whole table. I'm happy though because after that double up I feel pretty certain that I'm going to survive the day.

Final level of the day (250/500 with 50 antes, really level and a quarter, we played 25 minutes into level 8) was pretty bad. My fatigue was catching up with me and also I felt at this point any edge I had was being eroded by increasingly better reads players had about me. Two or three times tried to steal blinds with reasonable but not premium hands, was reraised and had to fold.

Had three hands this level where I lost a lot of chips but made good laydowns so I actually feel pretty good about them.

Two of them went like this: Dealt A9 in LP, raise, get called by one of the blinds. Flop comes 9 high, but all hearts. Blind player bets, I fold because I have no hearts. He shows me TT with no hearts thinking I folded a better hand.

One hand MP player raises, I reraise late with AcKc, he calls Flop comes all diamonds, check-check. Turn another diamond, check-check. River a brick, he bets, I fold, he shows AdKd. Could have been a lot worse.

Two good hands I had (I'm not sure what level these were): Dealt 44 in late position and raise. Called by relatively short stacked player in the BB. Flop is KQX with two clubs (I have no clubs). I check, he bets 500 into a 2000ish pot, I raise 2000. He thinks for 5 minutes and folds TT face up.

Another hand I raise with again 44 from middle position, get called by BB. He has maybe 3000 left. Really scary flop like AKX with two suits. He checks, I read him as weak, I bet 1000, he thinks for a long time and folds and shows TT. He is extremely agitated after this, asks if I would have folded if he moved in, I say “I reserve my right to refuse to answer” which tilts him a bit more.

Another interesting hand was Mimi's bust out hand. Player two to my right goes all-in, which was a massive overbet at the time (he had I think 6000, but I'm not sure what level), Mimi with about 8000 thinks for awhile and moves in. I look down at AKs and go in the tank. Ultimately I decided to fold because many of the Aces or Kings were probably in Mimi or the other guy's hands, and I just wasn't feeling it despite the good price I was getting. I was a little annoyed when the guy flips up 66 and Mimi has AK, but the flop is 6AX and Mimi is crippled. I definitely got a little lucky here to have Mimi move in before me, if she didn't move in I definitely would have.

Add all this up and I finished the day with 13,300. Kind of disappointing but I'm really not beating myself up about it. Blinds when I return on Sunday will be 300/600 with a 75 ante, so certainly relative to most online blind structures, not a situation I'm that uncomfortable with, although I'll be one of the short stacks. Hopefully I can find a good place to double up. Always so much tougher than it sounds.

Overall, while I made more mistakes than I should have, I was pretty happy with my play once I got comfortable. I felt I was making good decisions, and that's all you can really do. I didn't have the cards during important times to really build chips. I'd also estimate my table was pretty tough, just passing around a lot of chips with probably well below average turnover (we didn't bust anyone until the 3rd or 4th level, which I thought was kind of strange relative to what was happing in the rest of the tournament).

Rio I think has a very nice setup for this style of tournament, although spectator control, bathroom access during breaks, and smoking areas could be improved.

I start tomorrow at noon. Wish me luck. Just one day to go before I'm in the money, my next goal. Pray for Aces.

2005-07-06T09:50:00.000-04:00

Oops for the lack of posts, I'm just no good at blogging.

Some were concerned about my losses in the $215s although I wasn't too concerned. However, I felt dropping down to the $109s, a level I tried to skip, was a prudent thing to do. Analyzing the results last night, this was definitely a good decision.

I have about 20 $109s done. My ROI is about 20%, which is very solid. I would imagine average at this level is about 15%. So, for those unfamiliar with how this works, an ROI of 20% means I profit on average over the 20 tournaments about $22 per game. Assuming I can do these about 2 at a time, that is about a $44 per hour rate. Not bad, but I wish it was better. The humorous thing about this game is that that reasonable ROI is driven by only being in the money about 20% of the time. So, losing 4 out of 5 times is considered good, which is hard for some people to understand. Tournament poker is like baseball, most of the time you step up to the plate you are going to fail, but as long as you fail less than everyone else you are a superstar.

Leaving for the WSOP tomorrow. I am very excited. My start day is Friday, so I will have at least tomorrow night and Saturday to do other things, which hopefully includes cleaning up in the Wynn 2/5 NL game like I did last time. Wish me luck.

2005-06-27T16:48:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to get some thoughts down on my foray into the $215s. I don't know what this post will accomplish and will probably be viewed as annoying, but the negative variance is catching up with me. Nothing too drastic but still disappointing.

After winning the Friday Special, I experimented a little with what limits to play, both in cash games and tournaments. Before winning that tournament, I was mostly focusing on the $55 SnGs and MTTs with $50 and up buyins. Now, these limits just aren't that interesting to me, and it feels like a good time to move up.

My cash game experiments initially started out good, but then I had two bad sessions where bad beats took away my stack (both times having AA cracked after putting the money in preflop), and I decided the variance just wasn't for me. Besides, I've always had trouble with focus in online cash games, and the higher stakes didn't really change anything for me.

I tried the $109s but had more initial success in trials of the $215s. So, I decided to focus on the $215s and just skip the $109 level entirely. Given my bankroll, this didn't and doesn't seem like a problem to me. Now, I'm still pretty new at these, and after 30 (which is a very small sample size), I am stuck about 7 buyins. Certainly not a disaster by any means, but doesn't feel good. I think the regulars on 2+2 (to the extent that there are any that post anymore), this downswing is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. However, man does losing eff with my head.

I don't think I am playing poorly, however, I do think I am still adjusting to the way $215 plays. My experience with SnGs is that there is no difference between the $6-$22 levels (all incredibly fishy, so fishy to the point I'd consider them tough to beat). The $33 level gets a little better and is probably the biggest goldmine from an ROI perspective. The $55 level is a big leap up from the $33 level, where people are actually trying to play well. Now, I don't have much history with the $109s, but I've read mostly that the play is very similar to the $215s, but I've also read the difference in softness is noticeable, so I don't know what to believe.

Now, the difference between the $215s and the lower levels is actually pretty subtle to me. It comes mostly in two ways: I'm having trouble getting paid off on my big hands, and my end game has suffered on a relative basis, as players make so many less endgame mistakes. Now, my endgame has always been pretty weak IMO, so this is probably my biggest problem. It could be solved if I entered the endgame with a big stack, but it just feels like I'm not getting paid off enough.

In $215s, players correctly understand that the first 2-3 levels the blinds are too small to risk much of your stack, so the games start off very tight and lose less players than would occur at smaller buyins. Once the blinds become more meaningful, say the 100 BB level or so, everyone mostly correctly plays a push or fold type game, which is necessary because most are still around 1000 or so chips given the lack of dead money in the games. Now there is a science to this strategy, for the most part doing well in this phase of the SnGs is a function of not running into other's big hands. But for the most part players' calling standards at this phase are appropriately sophisticated that there is just a lot of blind trading going on and this phase lasts again much longer than it would at lower buyins. I've noticed that sometimes the game goes 5-handed up 2 or 3 levels beyond where it would be 2-handed at a lower buyin which adds so much volatility to the results. So, with the blinds getting so big, it doesn't take much to go from 1st to 5th and bubble out of the money. Certainly the longer these go into the levels, the bigger the crapshoot they become. I imagine this is why the ROI on $215s can never be as high as lower buyins and the swings can be bigger. That statement is both obvious and non-obvious to me now.

I will say it is kind of fun to be playing the highest non-Step SnG limit on Party. I'm playing against repeat customers much more frequently, and several people who are highly ranked amonst all online players, and people who do this for a living. I certainly appeciate the challenge of playing against the best players, as I feel I can mostly hold my own.

As far as MTTs, I played a few this weekend with poor results. I played the Friday Special again for the first time, got about two hours into it and my well concealed straight ran into well-disguised quads. 22 limped in mid position, I was in the BB with 68 or something. Board is 572, I check, limper bets, I call. Turn is a 2, check, check. River is a 4, I bet, limper pushes, I call.

I found my new favorite MTT, the $109 rebuy tournaments on Stars. I played two this weekend, one Saturday at midnight, one Sunday night. Frustratingly, in each I made it within a few places of cashing, only to fizzle out.

On Saturday, I was short on chips and called an all-in bet from someone I put on a small pair with KQs. I was right about my read, but lost the hand. It is easy to second guess yourself, but looking back this call probably wasn't that compelling and it wasn't worth risking my life taking a known coinflip. Harrington V2 talks a lot about first in vigorish in the end game, and a better play was probably to fold and push with whatever hand I got next if the action folded to me.

On Sunday, I again made it very far, only to see my AA that made a set on the flop get outdrawn by someone on a flush draw. I made an error in the hand by letting him hit his flush cheaply, but I seriously doubt this individual would have backed down from his nut flush draw on the flop, so I just think this is an example of terrible luck. I guess I will never know.

Given my bankroll and time considerations, MTT buyins below $100 don't really make sense for me anymore. However, most of the $200 plus buyins are the heavily promoted and have huge fields, so it takes a lot of time and positive variance to work my way through. I do like the rebuys quite a bit because mostly the fields are much smaller. I enjoy the wild rebuy period, and haven't had to pay a lot to acquire chips. In both of the rebuys I played this weekend, I just did the initial buyin, plus one rebuy, plus the addon after the first break.

Oh well, at the end of the day I feel like I'm consistently getting my money in with the best hands, but the variance has worked against me lately. As long as I keep getting my money in when I'm ahead, by definition things will come back. At least I can feel like I'm just getting all the bad variance out of me know. Hopefully the positive stuff will come flowing back around July 7.

Of course right before this downswing I'm experiencing, I had withdrawn a large amount of money from Party. Cashout curse? It certainly feels like it.

2005-06-22T09:55:00.000-04:00

Went 0-2 last night. The generally frustrating thing about this game in the short term is that you can win because of luck, or you can win because you play well, you can lose because of bad luck, or you can lose because you played poorly. It is nice to always win because you're good, and lose because you are unlucky, but unfortunately, last night I went 0-2 due to one key mistake in each SnG.

In one, I raised out of position with KQ again, and failed to realize when I did this the stack sizes around the table. The blinds were big and the standard raise represented about a quarter of my stack, but it was 3/4 of the stack of the BB. So, he reraises all-in for a trivial amount, and I lose to his AJ. Now, AJ is a much stronger hand than one would expect him to have here, but I definitely didn't want action here and should have expected I would get it with such a small stack in the BB.

In the other one, this hand came up:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (5 handed) converter

MP (t1670)
Hero (t2665)
SB (t2440)
BB (t1895)
UTG (t1330)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ks, Ts.
2 folds, Hero raises to t350, SB calls t300, 1 fold.

Just a standard raise to steal the blinds with a decent hand, but I knew SB had the tendency to play back at me, and more importantly I totally ignored his stack size relative to mine and the rest of the table. He's the last one I want to tangle with at this point in the tourney, where it should be very easy to get into the money.

Flop: (t800) 7c, 9c, Th (2 players)
SB bets t800, Hero raises to t2315 (All-In), SB calls t1290 (All-In).

I felt at the time his bet was just a play at me, so I pushed expecting him to fold as he certainly wouldn't want to bust out this hand. I didn't take the important step of actually thinking about what hands he might be playing here, and the possibility I'm behind here.

Turn: (t5205) 3s (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t5205) 9h (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: t5205

Of course he had KK, and I'm now too crippled to continue. Stupid, stupid, stupid stuff.

Given that I just started playing the 215s and don't have much of a sample size, just losing these two really hurts my ROI. I'll survive though, and at least it is still a positive number.

2005-06-21T16:40:00.000-04:00

This will be a long post, but too much of a gem to pass by. Was cleaning out an email inbox when I came across some hand history emails. Below is I believe the first, or close to the first NL SnG I ever played. This is before reading any books or putting any amount of thought into the game. I actually think this is kind of interesting as it represents how I would naturally play the game. Generally, I think I did a good job with starting hand selection, but didn't have any regard for position. I also rarely raise, just a lot of calling. In all, I don't think my playing in this SnG is all that awful considering my experience level.

Gives me pride to think less than a year later I'm playing in the highest limits, travelling to casinos, and playing in the World Series of Poker. What a strange year.

Summary
----------
Played on : 01 August 2004 05:42 PM
On Table : Table 12393
Game Type : Texas Holdem
Buy-In : $5
Fee : $1
You finished in position 5
1st place - rfk63 - $25
2nd place - BobbyWadd - $15
3rd place - WAYNEGROW21 - $10

***** Hand History for Game 804525669 *****
Dealt to SrGuapo [ Td, 4c ] (folded preflop)

***** Hand History for Game 804529386 *****
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 17:43:45 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Chases_Aces (800)
Seat 2: randomonium (1900)
Seat 3: rfk63 (800)
Seat 4: safariwinder (800)
Seat 5: littleshark (800)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (800)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (790)
Seat 9: Stupideo (785)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (525)
Stupideo posts small blind (10)
WAYNEGROW21 posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 7s, 7d ]
Chases_Aces calls (15)
randomonium calls (15)
rfk63 folds.
safariwinder folds.
littleshark calls (15)
SrGuapo calls (15)
BobbyWadd folds.
Stupideo calls (5)
WAYNEGROW21 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 8d, 3h, Qc ]
Stupideo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (15)
Chases_Aces calls (15)
randomonium calls (15)
littleshark calls (15)
SrGuapo calls (15)
Stupideo calls (15)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 4d ]
Stupideo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (100)
Chases_Aces folds.
randomonium did not respond in time.
randomonium folds.
littleshark folds.
SrGuapo folds.
Stupideo calls (100)
** Dealing River ** : [ 5c ]
Stupideo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (395)
WAYNEGROW21 is all-In.
Stupideo calls (395)
Creating Main Pot with $1170 with WAYNEGROW21
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1170 |
Board: [ 8d 3h Qc 4d 5c ]
Chases_Aces balance 770, lost 30 (folded)
randomonium balance 1870, lost 30 (folded)
rfk63 balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
safariwinder balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
littleshark balance 770, lost 30 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 770, lost 30 (folded)
BobbyWadd balance 790, didn't bet (folded)
Stupideo balance 260, lost 525 [ 8s Ks ] [ a pair of eights -- Ks,Qc,8s,8d,5c ]
WAYNEGROW21 balance 1170, bet 525, collected 1170, net +645 [ 7c Qh ] [ a pair of queens -- Qh,Qc,8d,7c,5c ]

***** Hand History for Game 804535925 *****
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 17:45:57 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Chases_Aces (770)
Seat 2: randomonium (1870)
Seat 3: rfk63 (800)
Seat 4: safariwinder (800)
Seat 5: littleshark (770)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (770)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (790)
Seat 9: Stupideo (260)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (1170)
WAYNEGROW21 posts small blind (10)
Chases_Aces posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ Qh, 9c ]
randomonium folds.
rfk63 calls (15)
safariwinder folds.
littleshark calls (15)
SrGuapo calls (15)
BobbyWadd calls (15)
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (5)
Chases_Aces checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 6h, 2s, 3s ]
WAYNEGROW21 bets (15)
Chases_Aces calls (15)
rfk63 calls (15)
littleshark calls (15)
SrGuapo folds.
BobbyWadd raises (30) to 30
randomonium: 2 QS ARE MISSING COMP FOLDED MY HAND
WAYNEGROW21 calls (15)
randomonium: YW
Chases_Aces calls (15)
rfk63 calls (15)
littleshark calls (15)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 2h ]
WAYNEGROW21 checks.
Chases_Aces bets (75)
rfk63 calls (75)
littleshark calls (75)
BobbyWadd raises (745) to 745
BobbyWadd is all-In.
WAYNEGROW21 folds.
Chases_Aces calls (650)
Chases_Aces is all-In.
rfk63 folds.
littleshark folds.
** Dealing River ** : [ 6d ]
Creating Main Pot with $1840 with Chases_Aces
Creating Side Pot 1 with $20 with BobbyWadd
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1840 | Side Pot 1: 20
Board: [ 6h 2s 3s 2h 6d ]
Chases_Aces balance 0, lost 770 [ 4c 2c ] [ a full house, Twos full of sixes -- 6h,6d,2c,2s,2h ]
randomonium balance 1870, didn't bet (folded)
rfk63 balance 680, lost 120 (folded)
safariwinder balance 800, didn't bet (folded)
littleshark balance 650, lost 120 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 755, lost 15 (folded)
BobbyWadd balance 1860, bet 790, collected 1860, net +1070 [ 3c 3d ] [ a full house, Threes full of sixes -- 6h,6d,3c,3d,3s ]
Stupideo balance 260, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 1125, lost 45 (folded)

Dealt to SrGuapo [ 9c, 4s ] (folded preflop)
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 3d, Tc ] (folded preflop)

***** Hand History for Game 804551967 *****
safariwinder finished in seventh place.
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 17:51:21 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: randomonium (1500)
Seat 3: rfk63 (2465)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (740)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (1800)
Seat 9: Stupideo (720)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (775)
SrGuapo posts small blind (10)
BobbyWadd posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ Qs, 4s ]
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (15)
randomonium calls (15)
rfk63 folds.
SrGuapo calls (5)
BobbyWadd checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 8h, Th, 7s ]
SrGuapo checks.
BobbyWadd bets (100)
WAYNEGROW21 folds.
randomonium calls (100)
SrGuapo folds.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 6d ]
BobbyWadd bets (150)
randomonium calls (150)
** Dealing River ** : [ As ]
BobbyWadd bets (275)
randomonium raises (1235) to 1235
randomonium is all-In.
BobbyWadd calls (960)
Creating Main Pot with $3030 with randomonium
** Summary **
Main Pot: 3030 |
Board: [ 8h Th 7s 6d As ]
randomonium balance 0, lost 1500 [ 6c Jh ] [ a pair of sixes -- As,Jh,Th,6c,6d ]
rfk63 balance 2465, didn't bet (folded)
SrGuapo balance 725, lost 15 (folded)
BobbyWadd balance 3330, bet 1500, collected 3030, net +1530 [ 9s 2h ] [ a straight, six to ten -- Th,9s,8h,7s,6d ]
Stupideo balance 720, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 760, lost 15 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 804555886 *****
randomonium finished in sixth place.
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 17:52:41 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2465)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (725)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3330)
Seat 9: Stupideo (720)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (760)
BobbyWadd posts small blind (10)
Stupideo posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 4s, 3d ]
WAYNEGROW21 calls (15)
rfk63 folds.
BobbyWadd: wow
SrGuapo calls (15)
BobbyWadd calls (5)
Stupideo checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 2c, Kd, Ac ]
BobbyWadd checks.
Stupideo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 folds.
SrGuapo checks.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 4d ]
BobbyWadd checks.
Stupideo checks.
SrGuapo bets (15)
BobbyWadd folds.
Stupideo calls (15)
** Dealing River ** : [ 2d ]
Stupideo checks.
SrGuapo bets (100)
Stupideo calls (100)
** Summary **
Main Pot: 290
Board: [ 2c Kd Ac 4d 2d ]
rfk63 balance 2465, didn't bet (folded)
SrGuapo balance 740, bet 130, collected 145, net +15 [ 4s 3d ] [ two pairs, fours and twos -- Ac,4s,4d,2c,2d ]
BobbyWadd balance 3315, lost 15 (folded)
Stupideo balance 735, bet 130, collected 145, net +15 [ Tc 4c ] [ two pairs, fours and twos -- Ac,4c,4d,2c,2d ]
WAYNEGROW21 balance 745, lost 15 (folded)

Dealt to SrGuapo [ 8h, 3c ] (folded preflop)

***** Hand History for Game 804563704 *****
15/30 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 17:55:19 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2150)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (740)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3315)
Seat 9: Stupideo (1065)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (730)
WAYNEGROW21 posts small blind (10)
rfk63 posts big blind (15)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ As, 5s ]
SrGuapo calls (15)
BobbyWadd calls (15)
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (5)
rfk63 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7d, Ac, 8s ]
WAYNEGROW21 checks.
rfk63 checks.
SrGuapo bets (75)
BobbyWadd folds.
WAYNEGROW21 folds.
rfk63 folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 135
Board: [ 7d Ac 8s ]
rfk63 balance 2135, lost 15 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 785, bet 90, collected 135, net +45
BobbyWadd balance 3300, lost 15 (folded)
Stupideo balance 1065, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 715, lost 15 (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 804565408 *****
30/60 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 17:55:54 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2135)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (785)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3300)
Seat 9: Stupideo (1065)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (715)
rfk63 posts small blind (15)
SrGuapo posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 4c, Jc ]
BobbyWadd folds.
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (30)
rfk63 calls (15)
SrGuapo checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 5h, 8s, 9d ]
rfk63 checks.
SrGuapo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (30)
rfk63 calls (30)
SrGuapo calls (30)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qh ]
rfk63 checks.
SrGuapo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (30)
rfk63 calls (30)
SrGuapo calls (30)
** Dealing River ** : [ 6d ]
rfk63 checks.
SrGuapo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (30)
rfk63 folds.
SrGuapo calls (30)
** Summary **
Main Pot: 330
Board: [ 5h 8s 9d Qh 6d ]
rfk63 balance 2045, lost 90 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 665, lost 120 [ 4c Jc ] [ high card queen -- Qh,Jc,9d,8s,6d ]
BobbyWadd balance 3300, didn't bet (folded)
Stupideo balance 1065, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 925, bet 120, collected 330, net +210 [ 2d Kh ] [ high card king -- Kh,Qh,9d,8s,6d ]

Dealt to SrGuapo [ 5s, 9h ] (folded preflop)
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 4d, Kc ] (folded preflop)
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 8d, 3h ] (folded preflop)

***** Hand History for Game 804578731 *****
30/60 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 18:00:24 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2600)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (650)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3520)
Seat 9: Stupideo (695)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (535)
WAYNEGROW21 posts small blind (15)
rfk63 posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 2s, Qh ]
SrGuapo calls (30)
BobbyWadd folds.
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (15)
rfk63 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ah, Ks, 3d ]
WAYNEGROW21 bets (30)
rfk63 folds.
SrGuapo calls (30)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qs ]
WAYNEGROW21 bets (60)
BobbyWadd: early for 5 handed
SrGuapo calls (60)
** Dealing River ** : [ Jh ]
WAYNEGROW21 bets (415)
WAYNEGROW21 is all-In.
SrGuapo folds.
Creating Main Pot with $685 with WAYNEGROW21
** Summary **
Main Pot: 685
Board: [ Ah Ks 3d Qs Jh ]
rfk63 balance 2570, lost 30 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 530, lost 120 (folded)
BobbyWadd balance 3520, didn't bet (folded)
Stupideo balance 695, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 685, bet 535, collected 685, net +150

***** Hand History for Game 804581826 *****
30/60 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 18:01:28 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2570)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (530)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3520)
Seat 9: Stupideo (695)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (685)
rfk63 posts small blind (15)
SrGuapo posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ Ts, 3h ]
BobbyWadd calls (30)
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 folds.
rfk63 calls (15)
SrGuapo checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 2d, 6s, 8c ]
rfk63 checks.
SrGuapo checks.
BobbyWadd checks.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Kc ]
rfk63 checks.
SrGuapo checks.
BobbyWadd bets (100)
rfk63 calls (100)
SrGuapo folds.
** Dealing River ** : [ Qs ]
rfk63 checks.
BobbyWadd bets (200)
rfk63 folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 490
Board: [ 2d 6s 8c Kc Qs ]
rfk63 balance 2440, lost 130 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 500, lost 30 (folded)
BobbyWadd balance 3680, bet 330, collected 490, net +160
Stupideo balance 695, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 685, didn't bet (folded)

***** Hand History for Game 804584828 *****
30/60 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 18:02:29 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2440)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (500)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3680)
Seat 9: Stupideo (695)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (685)
SrGuapo posts small blind (15)
BobbyWadd posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 2c, Qd ]
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (30)
rfk63 calls (30)
SrGuapo calls (15)
BobbyWadd checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 3s, 2d, Kh ]
SrGuapo bets (30)
BobbyWadd folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (30)
rfk63 folds.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 7c ]
SrGuapo bets (30)
WAYNEGROW21 raises (475) to 475
SrGuapo folds.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 685
Board: [ 3s 2d Kh 7c ]
rfk63 balance 2410, lost 30 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 410, lost 90 (folded)
BobbyWadd balance 3650, lost 30 (folded)
Stupideo balance 695, didn't bet (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 835, bet 535, collected 685, net +150

Dealt to SrGuapo [ 4d, 7s ] (folded preflop)

***** Hand History for Game 804591148 *****
30/60 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5009194) - Sun Aug 01 18:04:38 EDT 2004
Table Table 12393 (Real Money) -- Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: rfk63 (2410)
Seat 7: SrGuapo (410)
Seat 8: BobbyWadd (3620)
Seat 9: Stupideo (785)
Seat 10: WAYNEGROW21 (775)
Stupideo posts small blind (15)
WAYNEGROW21 posts big blind (30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ 3s, Ac ]
rfk63 calls (30)
SrGuapo calls (30)
BobbyWadd calls (30)
Stupideo calls (15)
WAYNEGROW21 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 5s, 8h, 5c ]
Stupideo checks.
WAYNEGROW21 bets (30)
rfk63 folds.
SrGuapo raises (380) to 380
SrGuapo is all-In.
BobbyWadd calls (380)
Stupideo folds.
WAYNEGROW21 calls (350)
Creating Main Pot with $1290 with SrGuapo
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 3d ]
WAYNEGROW21 checks.
BobbyWadd checks.
** Dealing River ** : [ 4s ]
WAYNEGROW21 checks.
BobbyWadd checks.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1290 |
Board: [ 5s 8h 5c 3d 4s ]
rfk63 balance 2380, lost 30 (folded)
SrGuapo balance 0, lost 410 [ 3s Ac ] [ two pairs, fives and threes -- Ac,5s,5c,3s,3d ]
BobbyWadd balance 3210, lost 410 [ Ks 8d ] [ two pairs, eights and fives -- Ks,8d,8h,5s,5c ]
Stupideo balance 755, lost 30 (folded)
WAYNEGROW21 balance 1655, bet 410, collected 1290, net +880 [ Th Tc ] [ two pairs, tens and fives -- Th,Tc,8h,5s,5c ]

2005-06-21T10:51:00.000-04:00

Note to self: stop playing KQ early and OOP:

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SrGuapo [ Ks, Qc ]
SrGuapo calls (50)
XXXXX raises (150) to 150
SrGuapo calls (100)

** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ad, 8s, 9d ]
SrGuapo bets (100)
XXXXX raises (350) to 350
SrGuapo folds.

2005-06-20T21:52:00.000-04:00

Damn, just fired off 3 $215s, one third, a fifth, and a fourth. Fourth was just a stupid, stupid bubble decision. The fifth my SB AA ran into the BB's A2, but two dueces on the flop and IGHN.

My stats now are ITM 33% with an ROI of 15%. Below where I would like it to be, but I think I am off to a good start.

Here is an interesting hand from level 1:

BB (t165)
UTG (t975)
UTG+1 (t1150)
UTG+2 (t795)
MP1 (t975)
MP2 (t955)
MP3 (t850)
CO (t2005)
Hero (t925)
SB (t1205)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8s, 8h.
6 folds, CO calls t15, Hero raises to t55, 1 fold, BB raises to t165 (All-In), CO calls t150, Hero calls t110.

Flop: (t505) Kd, 3d, 3s (3 players, 1 all-in)
CO bets t150, Hero raises to t760 (All-In), CO folds.

Turn: (t1415) Qh (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t1415) Jh (2 players, 2 all-in)

2005-06-20T17:19:00.000-04:00

Daniel Negreanu is pulling his support of online startup Poker Mountain, following a botched launch due to software reliability issues: per Daniel's blog: "As for my affiliation with the site, that relationship won't be part of the re-launch. The online poker landscape has changed so much over the last couple years and I'm exploring other possibilities for myself. "

I downloaded Poker Mountain due to the marketing strength of Daniel's endorsement, but never really played on or deposited into the site. I thought it looked good, but had no players. Despite the massive potential returns, it appears to be very difficult to get a successful online gambling site started, which is discouraging for those hoping this is a low-barrier to entry business that will see rake erode over time due to competitive factors. Although Party is probably an inferior product, it's dominance isn't going anywhere if competitors can't get their junk together to engineer a successful launch.

I guess this also speaks to Negreanu's ego. Whereas say a yr ago he was happy to affiliate himself with a new startup, he seems to be strongly hinting towards a Negreanu branded site. Or maybe Steve Wynn is getting into the business. In any case, this is all ultimately bad news for those of us trying to maximize our online returns.

2005-06-20T14:17:00.000-04:00

Played 6 $215 SnGs yesterday with decent results, 2 firsts and 1 3rd (my first third). I don't have my results with me, but in the last week (the first week since moving up to the $215s, I've played about eleven of them with about 3 firsts, 1 second, and 1 third (or an ROI of 27%). I would say this is not too shabby so far, but obviously early. My initial take is that the quality of play is clearly very good, but I play good too. The opportunity in these is refining my endgame, and Harrington V2 seems very helpful in this regard with its treatment of inflection point theory.

Most notably, I find I can focus better when playing the $215s. I believe if I'm not distracted by things, I can play a very solid game of poker, it is when I'm not trying that of course I suck!

With an ROI of 27%, assuming I can 2-table the $215s, that creates a hourly rate of ~150. Again, not too shabby. However, the swings are a little crazy, Saturday was depressing after going 0-4.

Not too many interesting hands. Lost when I ran into monsters, 3rd happened when I pushed with AKs only to be called by AA. More focused on the metagame than individual hands any ways, but clearly, how I play when short stacked with 5 or so left is the key to making money in this game.

2005-06-20T13:35:00.000-04:00

Hello, I am SrGuapo, an NYC based online poker semi-pro. I focus predominately on no-limit holdem tournaments, and can currently spend most of my poker playing time multitabling the $215 buyin single table tournaments on Party Poker. I recently moved up to the $215s following some excellent multi-table tournament results. I find it exciting to finally be playing at limits where standard winning rates (~25% ROI per SnG) can actually translate into a meaningful hourly rate. I can't quit my day job just yet, but it is nice to fanticize.

My goal is to continue to develop my tournament game and this blog will follow that progress. I'd like to be able to mix in higher buyin tourneys when my comfort level allows it, and continue my impressive run lately in the multi-table tournaments. I will also be playing the WSOP main event next month after qualifying through Party, and I hope to make some noise. The ultimate goal however is an hourly rate that makes real world working a silly thing to do.

Beyond poker, I'm very interested in game theory, numeracy, the business of online gambling, prop betting, and other related topics and will comment accordingly. My ride thus far has been quite exciting, and I'll be pleased to have you join the journey.