yabi

AC's Next 30 Years...

2008-06-01T13:24:00.004-05:00

Thirty years ago a grouped of investors decided to take the ultimate gamble and built the first casino in Atlantic City. The place was the Resorts International and within the first 20 minutes of it's grand opening, it filled it's capacity of 5,000 guest. Since that mark in time, Atlantic City grew into one of the most well-known getaway spots on the Eastern Coast. Within those thirty years, Atlantic City has grown into a resort giant; building land marks like the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa which receives world-wide attention thanks to such media events like the World Poker Tour. To some, Atlantic City may be better known for hosting the American Beauty Pageant since 1921 (until recent). With it's distinct location, history, and presence, it's one of the few places known world-wide by it's initials alone, "AC".

The intentions of this entry is not to browse over the history of Atlantic City and what it has become; instead let's take a look at the future of a city who claims it's "always turned on".

A few years ago things looked bright for the city. Many new frontiers were being put together to start the transition of taking the eastern city and turning it into the successful glamoring styles of Las Vegas. Many Las Vegas owned hotel entertainment companies planned to come to the East and bring the Vegas charm with it, such as the $5 billion MGM Grand and the historical Sands replacement, Pinnacle Entertainment's Hotel.

But things sometimes change; recently Atlantic City has been suffering from negative press and record-breaking financial losses. Such causes of Atlantic City's depression are doest in it's headlines like: largest fine for underage service, full smoking ban, rise of gas prices, casino owner losing license, legalizing casino's in Philadelphia, and the announcement of possible 20 year toll hike. All of these reasons plus many others such as the general state of our economy leaving less disposable income, all lead to a not-so-sure future for Atlantic City.

You can feel it walking on the boardwalk. The row of shops look like shacks found in depressed area's of major cities. The once gorgeous casino's that lined the walk now look old and in need of new life. Places like the Hilton and Resorts feel dated and in need desperate need of TLC, while others like Bally's Wild West seem like a ghost town. Even the famous casino's by Trump Entertainment seem gaudy and dated compared to it's competitor, the Borgata.

But all is not lost. While rumors circulate that Pinnacle is putting a halt on it's casino due to the economy, others seem ready to dive in a help make the next 30 years of AC's history just as successful as it's previous. Not only has Pinnacle and MGM shown interest, but Morgan Stanley has purchased 20 acres North of the Showboat, AC Gateway - headed by former Caesar's CEO - is planning a $1.5-2.0 billion dollar hotel, and recently Coastal Marina LLC purchased the drowning Trump Marina to build Margaritaville in it's place.

I believe that the next few years will really set the tide on where Atlantic City will be 30 years from now. If the city continues to move forward and develop itself to be like Las Vegas, then I can envision an increase of visitor's and revenue especially with the cost of traveling rising almost every other day. People on the East would save the money and stay in Atlantic City instead of traveling the distance to Las Vegas. But as it stands right now, Atlantic City is a far cry from Vegas - not as fun, not as good looking, and not as bright of a future.

How to Bust an Honest Man

2008-05-16T13:54:00.002-05:00

Interesting...

Poker-In-The-Rear

2008-05-04T22:45:00.002-05:00

Greetings all,

As some of you may know, one of the world's most controversial video games has released; Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 4. I'll spare you the details of it's history and what the game is about and jump right to the point of this blog. Throughout the game you can access the games Internet at various places in the map. When your using the game's internal Internet, there are tons of random and strange sites you can visit. One of these sites is "www.poker-in-the-rear.com". It presents itself as not only a online poker site, but a world-wide tournament very similar to the WPT. You can even catch episodes of poker on the games internal TV hosted by this make believe poker company. The reason I bring this to the table is if you were to take the time and actually read their website, it sends a very interesting opinion on the Internet Gambling Act. Here is a copy of the what is written on the website: (Warning, foul language is posted below)

Politicians don’t understand that you can’t legislate morality. First sex, now poker! The advent of online poker gave a whole new generation the chance to experience America’s greatest sport – going tits up and ruining your life based on random chance. It was like the old west but the hookers were hotter. Without ever having to step foot in seedy casino, a whole new generation had the chance to gamble without their friends and family finding out. Then president Lawton came along and spoiled the party with a new law blocking payments to Internet gambling sites from checks, debit cards, credit cards, or any type of electronic transfer. You can plow cash into a volatile stock market as assholes in suits run around fucking with your retirement. You can bet on an emaciated animal running around the track. You can buy a girl from Eastern Europe online. You can fritter away money on fantasy baseball. You can spend as much as you want on state lottery tickets at odds of 120 million to one. You can fill your home full of guns. You can even play Bingo in the church hall. Yet, according to the religious fervor and scare-mongering of the hypercritical, right-winged moralist on Las Venturas dole, they believe it is there job to ban everything that is fun. Online gambling is not suddenly a menace to society and a danger to our children. Smoking, goatse, polygamy, and now poker! And they call themselves patriots?!!! What could be more quintessentially American then addiction and gambling? Poker is a game of lying and taking other people’s shit so they are ruined for life. That’s my America, baby. Turn on your TV – The Ventura’s Poker Challenge is on all the time. Apparently, it is no longer up to us how we squander our money. What happen to Land of the Fucking Free?!!

The message is mixed. In my opinion it attacks poker as a game of skill, yet brings up some very strange, and some-what true claims. For instance, when it rambles about "You can plow cash into a volatile stock market... You can bet on an emaciated animal running around the track. You can buy a girl from Eastern Europe online. You can fritter away money on fantasy baseball. You can spend as much as you want on state lottery tickets at odds of 120 million to one. You can fill your home full of guns. You can even play Bingo in the church hall." These are all true, yet no "moral" law protects Americans from these what would be unmoral activities.

I am curious on how others feel about GTA's post on the matter. While it's not suppose to be serious by any means, I think it brings up some good points in a laughable manner.

Disappearing Act

2008-04-06T07:53:00.003-05:00

Since December I have sort of disappeared from the blogging world. My first response to this is, I'm sorry. As of late, I have had some reversals on my quest to $500 following Chris Ferguson's Bankroll Management Rules. I was well over half way to the goal when I hit a cold deck. I lost many tournaments by what the general public would call "bad beats", however; I continued to keep my outlook positive by remembering in the long run I will win these races and have their money. I must admit, it's been extremely hard at times to keep that in mind, so much so that I am taking a break from SNG play and getting my feet wet in micro-limit cash games. I am starting out at the .05/.10 rooms to get use to the flow of a cash game. It's been different, but enjoyable. I'm hoping that things work well for me and allow me to move up the limits rather quickly. So far it seems that cash games fit my style of play, almost too good. I like to play a lot of suited connectors, and one-off hands. I like post-flop play and most importantly for a cash game; I like to gamble. The most difficult challenge is forcing myself to play in these micro-limits but, we'll see what the future may bring in this next chapter of my poker career.

In other news, what does Blackstone, Houdini, Wilson, Vernon and Burton have to do with anything? In my world, it has to do with everything. These are some of the greatest magicians that ever lived and over the last year I have developed an interest in the conjuring arts of magic. As an amateur illusionist and card sharp, I have been able to gain confidence in myself and started performing for friends and family. Their reactions fuel my interest in the arts even further, forcing me to spend less time behind the table and more time practicing sleights and illusions. As my interest grows I have been in heavy debates if I want to start posting about the arts in this blog. A typical blog is usually about yourself and your interest - and with my limited amount of time behind card tables, and more time on the stage, I believe this blog would have more entertainment over time if I opened it up to other things besides poker. I guess time will tell what this blog will develop into, so until then - good luck out there. May your good cards hold up.

Cheers.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

2007-12-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

It's been several weeks since I had the oppertunity to blog. I've been a victum of holiday madness which has kidnapped all my free time, leaving me with no outs. I have much I want to talk about but the madness has not stopped, I must travel to visit family and I plan to leave in an hour. Before I go, I just wanted to wish everyone a great holiday weekend and a wonderful New Year. Hopefully Santa brings you a pair of those unbreakable pocket-aces this year.

Cheers all!

Rest In Peace

2007-12-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

David "Chip" Reese, 1951 - 2007
"The Greatest Cash Game Player That Ever Lived" - Jeffery Pollack

David "Chip" Reese passed away Tuesday morning from effects of pneumonia. Chip Reese was surely a living legend with a very impressive record for a "cash game player" including 3 World Series of Poker bracelets, 1991 induction into the Poker Hall of Fame, and over $2.9 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Chip Reese's most notable accomplishment was his most recent WSOP bracelet in the 2006 $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Tournament taking home over $1.7 million.

Ton's of media and news outlets are covering the story, here are a few direct links:

Three-time WSOP bracelet winner Reese dead at 56 (ESPN)
Poker star David Reese dead at 56 (Sports Illustrated)
Poker Legend David 'Chip' Reese Dead at 56 (PokerNews)
Poker Legend David 'Chip' Reese Dies (CardPlayer)
Brunson's Issue Statement on Passing of Chip Reese (CardPlayer)

Google Search

TJ Cloutier, Moment of Silence

David Reese wins his third bracelet CardPlayer Tribute

Big Booms!

2007-11-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

I've been extremely busy lately so I haven't had much time for cards. With that note I don't have much to say so instead I will leave you with some videos.

Frontier Hotel, Las Vegas

SANDS in AC

StarDust, Las Vegas

Aladdin Resort, Las Vegas

Boardwalk, Las Vegas

Landmark, Las Vegas

Hacienda, Las Vegas

Castaways, Las Vegas

Top 10 Vegas Implosions

Being Tagged & Update

2007-11-04T14:54:00.000-05:00

Okay so I get this comment from my buddy Dillo telling me I'm tagged. At first I have snapshots of kids running around in a school yard yelling "tag, you're it!" Then I realized it was much worse than being tagged it as the overweight school kid in a game that required athletic abilities. Much worse.... I have to share things with you people. Not just one or two things either, 7 total, and they are suppose to be personal. Let me take some of your time and explain to you the rules:

Here's how it works .... cut .... paste ....

A). Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

B). Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.

C). Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

D). Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So without further ado, here are my 7 things you really didn't need to know about me.

When I was a teenager I competed in tournaments playing video games. My "clan" was one of the top clans in Unreal Tournament and Medal of Honor Allied Assault. I believe I have brought my competitiveness from playing in those tournaments to poker.
When I was real young I had an imaginary friend. My imaginary friend was perfectly described as someone who passed away in our house long before I was born. I never heard about this person and there were no pictures of them in the house - but I described them perfectly - even knew their name.
My first ever poker game I played was for $20. I didn't know what a flush was and never heard of a full house. It was literally the first time I played poker and I folded a Royal Flush. True story, I was put all in on the river and I was one away from the money. I got scared and tossed my cards up on the table. The who room lit up thinking I called and nailed a Royal, however it wasn't the case... I folded, and the dealer and original bettor both knew it.
Folding the Royal Flush by being scared was the reason I starting playing poker. I figured, it there are people as bad as me out there than I should be able to do good once I learn a few things. It wasn't until my friend Harry brought me an instructional DVD that I realized you can actually make money by playing poker (poker isn't purely a game of luck). That single DVD has created the thirst of ongoing knowledge and studying I do today. (It also helped that after I watched the DVD I won like 3 games in a row - total luck too, lol).
My biggest goal in poker is not to be number 1, but to be amongst the decent players. I would like to have such runs as fellow bloggers Lucko21 and CracknAces, or even Sheet's mental understanding of the game. My ultimate goal is to make enough to help supplement my income.
I'm a cat person. It wasn't always the case. All my life I was a dog person. I loved dogs and I couldn't stand cats. I never understood the idea of owning a cat - a dog just seemed like so much fun and a cat... well a cat just sleeps. Not until I was stuck with 3 cats from my ex did I ever care for cats. Getting to know them and being around them everyday made me convert. It's funny, now I seemed to feel the same way about dogs like I did about cats a few years ago. Now I look at a dog and think, "they're messy, dirty, high maintenance, and loud" and my cats... "they just sleep, eat, and shit all on their own". Truly low maintenance animal.
Number 7, the last thing about me that most people don't know. I guess if you read this far you're somewhat interested in what I am going to say here. I already talked about my ghost story, my donkiness, and my unManly love of cats. I really don't know what else you people want from me! I guess I can say that I wish I was born a few generations ago. Not when things were financially bad for most people, but when people respected each other. There is so little respect in this world it's sad. Whatever happen to your neighbors bringing you freshly baked cookies, or being invited to people's houses for family BBQ nights? What about actually dressing nice when going to a high-class restaurant? I can't believe when I go to a restaurant with a menu that starts at $28 and see people in shorts and a backwards ballcap. I just hate the way the world has become. I guess I need to get better at playing poker so I can get lost inside casino's all day where the world doesn't exist!

Now that I dragged you through all of this, I am suppose to tag 7 others. That's going to be a problem since everyone I know in the blogging community has already done this. Let's see how many people I can tag: JamyHawk, Lucko21, Hoyazo (he loves to type), Schaubs, Sana (maybe he will finally update), foxypham (my old WPX buddy), and lastly, Nfulton (he hasn't said much lately!).

Wow, I made it... I got 7. I did my part, cheers everyone!

Ace-King Continue

2007-11-04T13:53:00.000-05:00

In my last post I brought up a key tournament hand where I was dealt AKos in the BB facing a 4xBB raise and a caller. I thank Jamyhawk and Dillo for providing their feedback on the hand. As promised, I will continue with the conclusion of the hand and my reasoning for my action. Before I do so, let's recap what happened:

Blinds t150 / t300
Hero Chip Stack: t9300
Average Chip Stack: ~t5000
Dealt to Hero: AKos
Hero in the Big Blind

Everyone folded to the luck-box who was in the Cutoff. He raises to t1,200. The Button folds, and my girl who was in the Small Blind calls. There is t2,700 in the pot, t900 for me to call.

What we know: The original raiser has been showing some aggression with weak hands. He has showed down hands as bad as Q2 suited. He’s a gambling player and the only one that can eliminate me. My girl, who just called the raise, would have re-raised with a monster holding and would have folded small pocket pairs. She has a hand like KQ suited, AQ/AJ, or maybe JJ-TT. She’s just calling here because of the raiser’s aggression, hoping to hit the board and take his chips. I have high confidence she’d re-pop him with AK, & AA-QQ so I figure to have the best hand here.

Let's figure this out, there is t2,700 in the pot and I have t9,000 after posting the BB. That means that a little better than 1/3 my stack is on the table. I strongly believe I have the best hand right now. I know if I make a big bet I am sure my girl will fold leaving me heads up with the original re-raiser. There are 9 people left in the tournament and it only cashes the top 3. With the payout structure I feel that this is a good enough chance, if any, to gamble. Here was my reasoning;

If I raise to 3k and get called, I can easy be priced out of the flop. This will leave me with about 6k in chips and even money with most of the field.

If I fold, well... I'm certainly not folding.

If I shove, I have a chance to gain t2,700 in chips which almost ties me for the chip lead in the tournament. If I am called by the original raiser and win, I will have almost t20k in chips, and a massive lead. Of course, if I lose I am out of the tournament.

Being that the tournament only pays down to three I figured it's a good time to give the green light and I shove. As predicted, the original raiser calls my shove after looking at his watch and commenting, "it's late, time to get this over with", and my girl folds.

The luck-box reveals A-2os and your Hero is standing proud with A-K. Before the cards are dealt I give a little show and hide behind the dealer exclaiming, "fade the deuce, fade the deuce". I didn't. The deuce was in the Window and I was sent on the rail with an unimproved Big Slick.

I knew by shoving I was indeed gambling and I did it solely on the payout structures. If the tournament paid down to 5th or more I would have simply raised it to 3k, leaving me 6k behind, and folded to an unfavorable flop. However, I chose my spot and went with my gut that I had the best hand. I was right, but couldn't dodge the poker god's wraith - or shall I say, "the luck-boxes luck". After the end of the tournament my girl came to me and said she had KQ suited and just wanted to get in a hand with him that had potential. I had both opponents read correctly however this time it just didn't matter.

The luck-box went on to finish first in the tournament, my friend Sana ended up finishing second, and my girl bubbled in fourth. All decent runs for them and overall it was a fun night. I'm looking forward to the next charity event MRS hosts, hopefully my story will have a happier ending next time.

Charity Poker Tournament

2007-10-30T23:18:00.001-05:00

This weekend I played in a charity poker event hosted by the Millville Rescue Squad. The buy-in was $20 and the prize pool was split 75/25 (charity got the 25%). The field was rather weak and was filled with people who thought they were great players; however, the sharks gobble them up rather quickly. When drawing for seats I was unfortunate enough to get selected for the only short handed table in the tournament which consisted of four people. I really wish that they would have taken my table and crammed us into other full tables. It would have been better to have an extra person sitting at the tables then to have such a short handed table. Although this bothered me, I wasn’t bitchy about it because I knew I was the best player at Seated at my table.

In Seat 1 was a young kid who felt the way to play poker is to make large raises and re-raises with nothing. I figured him out really quick and ended up taking most of his chips after an hour’s play. I was in Seat 2; Seat 3 consisted of a first timer whose luck just seemed unstoppable. So many times he put all his money in with the worst and came out on top. It was his night, that’s just how the cards fell for him. In the last Seat, Seat 4, we had a friend of Seat 1 and he partly featured Seat 1’s aggressive play style. He was aggressive pre-flop but very tight post-flop. When I got into hands with him I would keep the pot small pre-flop then nail him on the flop (or turn) and rake the money.

My only problem I faced was the luck that consumed Seat 3. I tried to stay out of his way unless I got the goods. I was forced to fold JJ and AK post-flop after decent re-raises pre-flop when I completely missed the board and Seat 3 went nuts with the betting. This cost me a good amount of chips both times which I ended up making back from Seat 1 and 4. Not to sound like Phil Hellmuth, but if my good hands would have held up with the luck-box, Seat 3, I would have eliminated everyone at my table with no problem. Just before the table broke I ended up crippling both Seat 1 & 4 which gave me a good chance to catch the tournament chip lead.

My new table consisted of so many familiar faces. In Seat 1 was the luck-box beginner (he moved to the same table); Seat 2 was another kid who over-valued the all-in bet and was part of the aggressive clique from my previous table; Seat 3 was my girl who was deep stacked and apparently running extremely well; I was in Seat 4; my long time friend, Sana, was in Seat 5; and one of the hosts of the event was in Seat 6. I knew everyone but the person in Seat 2, which I later made friends with after the game.

When I sat down at my new table I stole a line from Rounders stating, “If we wanted to take each other’s rolls we could have stayed home.” As everyone laughed at my entrance I quickly tallied up chip stacks for each player. Seat 1 of course had a tremendous chip stack and was the tournament leader, followed by my girl and I. Seat 2 has some chips, but like his friends – his aggression would end up killing him. My friend Sana was average stacked for the tournament, but he knows how to get chips. Finally, Seat 6 was short stack and didn’t understand that you can’t limp in with 4 BB left to see a flop – it was only a matter of time for him.

Overall the tournament went well. Momentum was definitely my way. I picked up a lot of chips and accumulated the second largest stack in the tournament. With such a stack I knew I could win the whole thing, and a few hours later it was 9 players left and only one person with a larger stack, the luck-box. That’s when the following hand occurred:

Blinds t150 / t300
Hero Chip Stack: t9300
Average Chip
Stack: ~t5000
Dealt to Hero: AKos
Hero in the Big Blind

Everyone folded to the luck-box who was in the Cutoff. He raises to t1,200. The Button folds, and my girl who was in the Small Blind calls. There is t2,700 in the pot, t900 for me to call.

What we know: The original raiser has been showing some aggression with weak hands. He has showed down hands as bad as Q2 suited. He’s a gambling player and the only one that can eliminate me. My girl, who just called the raise, would have re-raised with a monster holding and would have folded small pocket pairs. She has a hand like KQ suited, AQ/AJ, or maybe JJ-TT. She’s just calling here because of the raiser’s aggression, hoping to hit the board and take his chips. I have high confidence she’d re-pop him with AK, & AA-QQ so I figure to have the best hand here.

Before I go into details on this hand, I would like to know what you’d do in this situation. Would you call, re-raise, shove, fold? I will post the results of this key hand by the end of the week. I am hoping for some commentary on this one so please use that “comments” link!

Cheers!

General Update

2007-10-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

Since my last post I haven't played much poker online which leaves me just shy of $200 for my race to $500. Soon I will be able to start playing in $10 SNG's which I am definitely looking forward to. I must admit, forcing myself to play in the $2-$5 SNG's really helped my patience. Players at these buy-ins shove and call all-ins with the crappiest cards. You truly need a hand or a solid read on the table to rake in a lot of chips. I've been doing good, but since the buy-ins are so low it takes a lot of money finishes to make a decent increase in your bankroll.

As for my live poker, I have been running fair. I played in a friends annual poker tournament which consisted of two NL Hold'em games finishing 3rd and 1st respectively. I also took a shot at the Turbo Hold'em Tournament at the Hilton in AC. I made an early exit when I tried to accumulate chips before the blinds and ante's went crazy. My girl also took a shot at the turbo tournament for her first live casino game. She finished 27th when her A6 was out flopped by her opponent's A2. I'm proud that she made it that deep in her first real tournament and with a little more experience she will do well on her own. She is already winning small games online, and I am currently attempting to help her establish a starting bankroll. I believe that if I keep working with her she will be a solid player on her own right in the future. She has really made solid progress in the last 4-5 months making consistant finishes in small online games.

In other news, my friend and fellow blogger James Hawkins posted about an employee cheating while playing on Absolute poker. The story has reached major news outlets like MSNBC and the hand history is posted all over the Internet. It's sad to see such ignorance in our community. I never understood why people always try to "gain an edge" while playing poker. If these people put the time into developing their poker skills rather than finding ways to cheat, they'd become solid legit players on their own right. It's stories like this that make Congress want to keep the Internet gambling from US players. They now have more fuel to add to their fire by claiming, "they are protecting US citizens from gambling scams".

Speaking of Congress and Internet gambling, recently the PPA went infront of Congress trying to pass Barney Frank's & Robert Wexler's bills. The Congress continues to be stubborn as CardPlayer writes, "reason is that lawmakers rarely admit to their mistakes and would often rather let their past decisions stand than to change their minds and look as if they are wavering". But with the PPA publishing stories about poker players with disabilities not able to play in brick and mortar casino's, one would hope that these heart warmers will one day change Washington's stance. Unfortunately pure ignorance will never go away as one "defender of the UIGEA" deeply argues that college kids are dumping thousands in credit debt to play Hold'em poker. He goofs at the end and admits he was someone who "did it" - referencing ringing up excessive credit card debt playing online poker. So when you think about it, since he was a losing player he wants to punish everyone. I bet if he won a major tournament for a couple grand he'd have a different tune on online poker. Sad isn't it? It's simular to Bill Frist (started the UIGEA) pulling the act that he was an anti-gambler while he received campaign money from Harrahs Casino. How that all works out I have no idea.

To further upset things, the IRS has passed a new law that enforces casino's to report any poker tournament winnings over $5,000 to them. The IRS will be asking for 25% of the player's winnings for tax purposes. If the tournament winner fails to present the casino with a valid tax id number (social security number), the casino is to withhold 28% of the winnings to be collected for taxes. This means when you see a player on WPT or WSOP win $1 million tournament, they will be playing $250,000 to the government. Such taxes really make me want to switch to a cash game player than a tournament player. The only advantage I have right now is that I do not play in high enough stakes to win such monies. As well, the new law states nothing about Internet poker. But tie this tax law with some of the new rules in tournament poker like the "cannot discuss your hand" rule, it really makes the cash games look better and better.

Well, that's it for now. Other then the normal daily grind I been spending time on TwoRags.com. This is one of the coolest poker sites I've seen in a long time. Not only do they have blind structures for virtually every brick and mortar & online tournament, they also have a wealth of information including EV calculators that you can use right on their website, no software downloading. It's definitely a must-bookmark site for any serious poker player.

Until next time, good luck on the felt!

SNG: Low-Blind Strategy

2007-10-15T18:05:00.000-05:00

General Strategy for Low Blind Play

Three types of hands that should be played:

Premium Hands
1. (AA, KK, QQ, AK) & (AQ, AJs, JJ-99)
Speculative Hands
1. (Suited Connectors, Suited Aces, Low-Mid Pairs, Mid-High Suited Semi-Connectors)
Late Position Value Hands

Pocket Aces-Queens

Raise, re-raise big before the flop (make larger raises in low stakes SNG)
- Raise to value bet and limit your opponents
Ideally take down a sizeable pot pre-flop, partially with Queens
If at an action table and in early position, go for a check-raise
If your hand doesn’t fair the best post-flop in a multi-way pot and your facing a lot of action, fold
If you have only a few players post-flop and everyone shows weakness by checking, bet ½ the pot even if there is an over-card
If you are the aggressor be willing to go all-in pre-flop. It’s the one time your willing to play a big pot in low blinds
If an opponent goes all-in pre-flop, call with Aces and Kings.

Big Slick (AK)

Great low-blind hand since it’s easy to get away from if you miss the flop
Standard 3xBB raise if you face no openers
- Add a little more to your bet for each limper
If pot is raised, often call avoiding large pots in low-blinds
If raised and the pot has multiple calls creating a large pot, go all-in
Value bet flop if you hit your Ace or King
- Place a higher bet with more people in the pot, and if the board is coordinated
If you miss only continue bet if you are the pre-flop aggressor and everyone shows weakness

AQ, AJs, JJ-99

Fold AQos, & AJs in early position
Limp or standard raise with AQs, TT-99, and raise with JJ in early position
In middle or late position call or raise with all of these hands if facing limpers; tend to fold if your facing a raise (particularly with AQos & 99)

Speculative Hands

You must satisfy these three conditions:
- Your in middle or late position
- The pot is un-raised with at least two limpers
- You are holding a hand which could develop into a post-flop monster
  - Usually means: suited connectors (45 suited and up), suited Aces, or ideally mid-low pocket pairs
  - Mid-high suited semi-connectors also qualify in late position after several limpers
Goal is to see cheap flop, fold if you miss
If pot is usually un-raised, limp small pairs in any position
Do not use speculative hands to call raises or justify playing trash hands
Be less inclined to play speculative hands if a player yet to act tends to raise

Late Position Value Hands

Must satisfy three criteria

Decent hand in late position
Everyone folds to you
You believe a raise will win the pot uncontested

Post-Flop Low-Blind Play

Post-flop is broken down into the following:

Excellent Flops
Solid Draws
Hands you were pre-flop aggressor but missed
Marginal hands
All other hands (tend to check & fold)

Excellent Flops (Two pair with top kicker or better)

Bet for value even if pre-flop aggressor
- Bet more if facing multiple opponents or facing a dangerous flop
If you believe your opponent is on a draw on the Turn, bet even if your hand is unbeatable

Solid Draws (flop draw to nut flush, mid pair with open ended straight/flush draw, or other quality draws)

If in multi-way pot and checked to you as the last person to act, take the free card (unless you have a strong feeling a bet will win immediately)
Keep the pot small when drawing
If there are opponents to act after you, but it’s checked to you, bet if you would call a bet (semi-bluff)
If facing a raise, tend to fold unless odds are good
If someone bets just before you in a multi-way pot with players left to act, tend to fold. The action may get re-raised behind you
With a straight-flush draw smooth call raise in multi-way, re-raise if heads up

Hands Where You Were Pre-flop Aggressor, and Missed

If holding a missed speculative hand tend to check & fold every street
If holding steal, or premium hand make a ½ - 2/3 pot bet against few opponents showing weakness
- Fold to a prior bet or if facing a raise to your bet

Marginal Hands (Flop weak top pair or modest hand)

If everyone checks to you bet ½ the pot. If you receive any action back, abandon the hand
Fold if you face a bet before your turn to act
Fold your hand if the following are met

If you are the pre-flop aggressor and an opponent bets
out unexpectedly at the flop, he is very unlikely to have a monster hand.

Introduction to Sit 'n Go's

2007-10-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

In the next few weeks I will be posting notes that I have taken from the book Sit 'n Go Strategy written by Collin Moshman. These notes are not an alternative for reading the book, but should be regarded as a compliment to the reading. One will never fully grasp the lessons to be learned in the text without reading it themselves.

This will be the first post of many. I will start out with the basics, then discuss blind play, and conclude with thoughts and maybe some comparison of Collin's strategy's Vs. strategy discussed at PokerXFactor. Without further a 'do, let's dive into the basics.

General Strategy

Play cautious game when the blinds are small and an aggressive game when the blinds are large

When the blinds are low, play only profitable hands. Avoid big pots unless confident that you have the best hand

When the blinds are of moderate size, begin stealing & restealing with decent hands in late position

When the blinds are high, make raises to win blinds. Make these raises with marginal hands that you would typically avoid playing in the lower blind levels

In the standard three payout SNG (Sit ‘N Go) structure, the more chips you have the less each chip is worth in real money; while the less chips you have, the more they are worth in real money.

Winning chips is not the same as winning real money; you should only be concerned about winning real money.

Being the better/raiser is better than being the caller. This is because betting and raising allows the possibility of winning the pot immediately. You can never win immediately by calling.

Equity & ROI

Equity is the amount of money a play will make in the long run.

Tournament Equity is your “rightful share” of a tournament’s prize pool. Every player has expected equity based on skill, mental state, distractions, etc. No player knows his own, nor any other player’s exact equity going into a tournament.

Table selection is crucial to maintaining a high ROI (Return on Investment)

Equity uncertainty is fundamental to tournament poker play in at least two regards:

It allows you to profit

It causes vast fluctuations in your bankroll

It allows you to profit.

You make money by having higher equity than other players

Natural fluctuations (luck) prevent losing opponents from realizing they are losing

It causes vast fluctuations in your bankroll.

You will inevitably face winning and losing streaks rather than a steady bankroll climb

This can cause doubt in your ability and makes for uncertain short-term profit or loss

Doubling up in the early stages of a SNG only doubles your chip count, not your equity. In an early double up scenario, the loser has lost chips of greater value than those the winner receives.

When players are all-in with a race situation early in a SNG both players are long-term equity losers. The remaining players are equity gainers.

A player can gain equity even if another player at the table can continually knock out opponents while you gain no chips.

Pot Odds

Single most important factor in deciding whether to call a bet

To know whether you should accept a certain risk, you must know the corresponding reward

Chip Expected Value

EV (Expected Value) of a wager is how much it wins you on average

Calculated by weighing each possible outcome with how likely it is to occur

cEV (Chip Expected Value) is the number of chips a play will make in the long run
Note: Fold is always cEV = 0

RakeTheRake Freeroll

2007-09-30T22:51:00.000-05:00

I recently finished 145th in the RaketheRake.com monthly freeroll on Full Tilt Poker. The win was enough to net me $30 for my zero dollar investment, but I must admit I am a little disappointed in the finish.

At hand #55 I was able to double through to t2,800 when I was dealt 99 UTG and limped in for t60. The action folds to MP2 who raises to t123 total. Everyone folds to me including the blinds and I call the t63 more creating a pot totaling t336. The flop comes 5 4 3 and I check. My opponent bets out t234 and I raise to t600. Right now I feel like I have the best hand and my check-raise here was to extract more chips from my opponent. He has over t10,000 and the second highest chip stack at our table has t1,560. His action has been raising every hand preflop and betting out on the flop regardless what the board brings. With only t632 left after the check-raise I am happy to win the pot right now; I am also willing to call an all-in shove as this would not be an uncommon reaction to my check-raise from this player. As expected, my opponent moves all-in for t10,423 and I call my remaining t632. The Turn and the River bring a Q & 3 which is no help for my opponent's A T.

After the double up I took down a couple small pots and stayed out of the way until hand #66. I got dealt pocket Aces followed by Big Slick which both ran good and stacked me up to t3,700. The action got quite from me until 30 hands later when I was dealt A J in the Hi-Jack. With the blinds at t50/100, I raised to t300 and the table folded around to the big blind who shoved all-in for t1,370 more. I called, and a J on the flop won the race against his 8 8 giving me a t5,890 stack to work with.

For the next 150 hands I stayed around 7-9,000 chips. It seemed that every time I would win a t2-3,000 pot I would loose one the same size a few hands later. I was never really able to accumulate chips like some of the other players however, I was making enough not to feel a lot of pressure from the blinds. On hand #191 I was dealt pocket Kings on the button when a UTG+1 player shoved all in for t7,397. My Kings stayed clear of his A-7 of clubs and brought me up to t13,018, the second largest stack at the table. I continued folded an orbit until the following hand occurred:
I started the hand with t8,992 and the blind structure at t400/800/100. I was dealt A J in MP2. The player in UTG+1 (t15,848) raised to t2,400. This was his 4th raise in the row with no resistance or calls. I decided that I needed to make a stand with just over 10x BB and shoved all-in. With t4,500 existing in the pot I am more then happy to take it down preflop and give myself over a 50% stack increase, instead, the action folds around to the original raiser who calls with J T. Three hearts on the flop give me the best hand and I double through to t19,824.

In the next three hands the guy who called me with JT was able to take ~t5,000 and make a little over t14,000. Unfortunately this was enough to cripple me in the follow hand:

The blinds are still t400/800/100 and I am in the big blind (t19,524). The hi-jack (t25,435)raises to t2,400 and the villain (t14,174) calls on the button. The small blind folds and I have A K looking at t6,900 in the pot. I am certainly not folding and I do not feel that either player is that strong. In this spot I am usually making a squeeze play and moving all my chips in the center of the table. Taking down this pot preflop will bring me over t25,000 and even if I am called I have a hand that can have decent show down value. The original raiser folds and the villain (who just smooth-called prior) calls the all-in putting his tournament life on the line with J 9. The pot is now t42,548 and I am 60% favorite to win this hand. The flop comes 8 T T giving him additional outs and creating a coin flop situation. The Turn is the T which is a good card for me. My percent to win goes to over 60% again as now only a 7, Jack, Nine, or Queen are his only outs to win (an 8 would split). It seemed like an eternity until the 9 was finally dealt on the River. With that pot I would have had a solid amount of chips, able to put pressure on the table and start building a decent stack for the final table. Having such a large stack would have also kept me out of trouble a few hands later when I called an UTG shove with pocket Nines and my t4,000 stack. The UTG player had almost 20k and which would have been an easy fold if I had 50k in chips. However, needing to make a move, I took the chance but could not best KJ os eliminating me 145th out of over 2,200 people.

Over all the tournament was a lot of fun, and the win definitely helps me reach my goal of turning $100 into $500. I hope to qualify for more of these tournaments in the future and go a little deeper next time. It would be nice to blog about a final table experience or even a take-down. Until then I will stick with grinding out the micro-limit Sit 'N Gos and continue to work towards my goal.

Until next time,
y.

Back Home, Update On Things

2007-09-24T21:25:00.000-05:00

It's been over a week since my last post and as always I want to keep my readers informed on my latest happenings. Last night I arrived back home after a long vacation. I wanted to post a blog about leaving, but with me procrastinating on everything before going, I left myself no time to do so. Now I am home, well rested, cleared my mind, and looking forward to playing some solid poker. I feel good about making some gains on my goal to $500 and hope to do so this week. I have been enjoying the Sit 'N Go Strategy book I discussed before and looking forward to sharing some of it's information with everyone in the near future. I must admit it's late for me and I must catch some sleep.

Until next time!

Poker is Good For You, Mr. Kobe

2007-09-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

Here are some interesting reads before I go away this weekend. As some of you may already know, David Sklansky and Dr. Alan N. Schoonmaker have recently published a 6,000+ word essay entitled, Poker is Good For You. This article can be found at Two Plus Two's Internet Magazine and is a must read for any poker player, or any person who has been following the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006.

In other news, professional basketball player Kobe Bryant attempted to out purchase bottles of Cristal against Antonio Esfandiari (and friends) at the grand opening of the nightclub Blush. You can read about this fun night out at AlwaysBluff.com.

Have a great weekend!

Update: Sklansky and Schoonmaker's article is no longer found on Two Plus Two and can be found here.

Road to $500, Update 1

2007-09-03T17:02:00.000-05:00

I have been writing this blog since Sunday. The reason for the lack of updates is not because I face writers block; instead I’ve been facing an upcoming trip, raise, and whatever else that can deviate my time away from blogging and poker. But without further ado it’s been (over) a week since I posted the blog entitled “Road to Recovery”. In that post I mentioned that I wanted to take $100 and turn it into $500 by following certain bankroll management rules. I promised to keep everyone informed on my progress, and true to my word, this is the first of many posts on where I stand in attempts to reach my goal. I would also like to discuss PokerTracker, as well as poker books Small Stakes Hold’em: Winning Big With Expert Play (Sklansky), & Sit ‘n Go Strategy (Moshman).

PokerTracker

I mentioned in my previous post that I was always against such programs because I felt today’s players are more focused on doing what a computer tells them to do rather than play “poker”. Recently I woke up to the conclusion that if my opponents are using such programs and I am not, then I am the one playing with a huge disadvantage. Since purchasing PokerTracker I have noticed that in certain blind levels I have leaks that cause me to go broke more often than not. However, if I make it to level ‘X’ I usually win the tournament or finish second.

Along with looking for leaks in blind levels I have been analyzing my most successful and devastating hands. When studying my hands I have been looking to see if my play is accurate on all streets regardless if I won or lost a big pot. I want to ensure that when I win chips it’s because I am doing the correct play rather than sucking out for a big score. In hands that I have lost chips I look for where I went wrong and try to correct my mistakes for future games. While I would like to discuss this in detail I have not fixed all my leaks to a point on where I am comfortable revealing them publicly. I would like to save this for a future post and go more in detail about certain hands and where I made mistakes and how I corrected them. Thanks to PokerTracker, I have found leaks in my play that will make much more than the $55 USD it cost to purchase the program.

Aside from PokerTracker I have been evaluating PokerAce HUD. For those unfamiliar with PokerAce HUD, it’s a program that can overlay statistics captured by PokerTracker right on your poker table. You can customize information you’d like to display on the screen, as well as add more in-depth information available about a player by clicking on their name. While I am still using the trial version of this software I do feel confident that I will be purchasing this program once my trial expires. I strongly believe that if you are willing to spend the money on PokerTracker but not the additional $25 USD for PokerAce HUD you can not be serious on using the information captured by PokerTracker to your benefit. The program has aided me in making some key decisions based on my opponent’s habits allowing me to capitalize on opportunities that I might have missed. Further discussion of these situations would make for an excellent article in a future blog. Right now I wanted to highlight on the product and put my recommendation to purchase both PokerTracker and PokerAce HUD. They are a must buy if you are truly serious on working to strengthen your game.

Road to $500

It’s been about one week since I have posted my challenge of taking $100 and turning it into $500. I have not played many games this week due to a wide variety of reasons as mentioned before. With that in mind here are my results:

Tournament Count: 6
Total Buy-in Amount: $33
Total Payouts: $64
Total Won/Lost: $32Average Won/Lost: $5
ROI: 51.5%
Current Bankroll: ~$132

It’s a slow start, but it’s a positive one. I know many fellow bloggers reading this post might look at a $32 gain and shrug at it, but keep in mind these gains are from $5 plus $.50 Sit ‘N Go’s. It will take some time to build up enough money to see greater gains, but with playing 6 games and making a 51% return on investment I believe it’s a great start.

Fun with Paperbacks

Recently I finished a book titled, “Small Stakes Hold’em: Winning Big With Expert Play” written by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, & Mason Malmuth. The book retails for $24.95 and is over 350 pages in length. This book focuses on micro-& low-stakes Limit Hold’em and presents the reader advice on dealing with the players and their actions in these low-stake games. If I can sum up the advice in this book in one sentence it would be: when the pot is small, fold if you have any doubts; if the pot is large, and call even if you’re unsure. The book does repeat a lot of theory already found in other poker literature; however, there are a lot of ‘new’ concepts in the book that are surprisingly refreshing. These concepts are custom tailored for the small-stakes game and shouldn’t be applied to the bigger games. In one example the authors have you call a River bet with Ace-high even though “you are most likely beat”.

Being a No-Limit player it’s hard to put all of the concepts in this book to use. Often the authors will tell you to call bets or make bets in situations because it’s only a fraction of the pot. The problem No Limit players face is that in the small-stake games this is rarely the case. Most players have no concept on proper betting and will usually over-bet the pot with their draws and made hands. Furthermore, since the book is based on Limit Hold’em, and not No Limit, it does not have any advice on dealing with players who abuse the all-in bet, or players who constantly raise 10x BB with any two pre-flop. To the book’s credit it does provide very informative information for the Limit player, and with enough thought, a No Limit player can modify the concepts and integrate them into their game with profitable results. Whether it’s Limit or No Limit the book has provided some interesting ways of looking at situations and many of them worth revisiting for further discussion. In the future I plan to re-read this book and take notes on some of the key topics & concepts and discuss them in a blog.

With that note I’d like to introduce you to the latest book on my bookshelf entitled, Sit ‘n Go Strategy by Collin Moshman. This book retails for $24.95 and runs just over 280 pages in length. A search on Amazon doesn’t leave you with much information; and while I have not yet began the book, I will attempt to give you a brief introduction on what the book is about.

The book is of course about Sit ‘n Go tournaments and it’s written in a very similar style that compares to the “Practice” sections of the Harrington books. Each lesson follows a hand history that constantly challenges the reader to answer, “what’s next?” followed by the actual course of action and an explanation. The book advertises its key points as:

- Master expected value, tournament equity, and fundamental poker concepts
- Distinguish between earning chips and earning money
- Develop an ultra-aggressive late game strategy to steal all the chips when the blinds are high and your opponents are tightening their play
- Play multiple tables, incorporate tracking software, and seize online-only edges
- Exploit recreational players in your table selection and game-play strategy, and
- Maximize your sit ‘n go profits by treating each game as a business investment

With only briefly skimming the book I am really anxious to dive into the material. This will be the first book I am going to take notes on, and when I am finished with the book I plan to share some of them with you. If I come across any concept that grabs my immediate interest I will be sure to post it up for discussion.

Wrap Up

That’s it for now, mainly because it has taking so long to get this far. I will continue to update this blog with my status and look forward to hearing your comments as I attempt to reach my goal.

Until we chat again, Cheers!

Road to Recovery

2007-08-26T13:52:00.000-05:00

The politicians call it gambling, the gamblers call it bad luck, the regulars call it bad beats, and the pros call it a cooler. Whatever your notion, I've been experiencing it and it hurts... bad. My bankroll has suffered from third-degree burns in the last few months with some of the most amazing draw outs I've ever experienced in my poker career.

Many bloggers will talk about their incredible run of good luck, or their unbelievable run of bad luck. When they are running bad they will point fingers at other players (the Donkeys) and blame it on them. Some players will actually go the lengths to blame conspiracy; claiming that the poker sites are purposely busting them out of the game and taking their money. While all this may be true, I rather look at a more realistic reason and blame myself.

I am not going to fill this blog up with my bad beats and turn it into a Phil Hellmuth session, instead I was to look at the situation as a "what now"? Currently I have lost almost 40% of my bankroll and I do not want to lose anymore and become a statistic. Instead I want to focus on what I am doing, why I am losing, and what has been different in my game recently. I point out recently because before my terrible swing of misfortune I was a profitable player. Unfortunately lately this hasn't seemed to be the case.

What Now?

I put a lot of thought into what I need to do and how to move forward without risking any more damage to my bankroll. I have decided that I will start out with $100 on Full Tilt and attempt to work it up to $500 in the next couple months. This puts my current bankroll at minimal risk and allows me to focus on some goals. Once I reach $500 I will set a new goal; so forth and so on. During this process I will report any major victories (or huge losses) while I work towards the goal. I will also share with everyone the way I go about reaching the goal (i.e., what limits I played, how much I won at those limits, tools used to analyze myself, books read, concepts understood, etc). When I (hopefully) reach my goal I am hoping that you, the reader, will have a series of good, informative blogs to read. With these post, I always encourage feedback and comments. I definitely want to hear your opinions on theories and concepts that I will discuss, so don't be shy - please reply!

Current Plan of Action

It's important to me that I accomplish my goal without having to reload on Full Tilt. I never once had to reload on a site for busting out and I really do not want to start now. I want to ensure that my bankroll will last through all the variations of the ups and downs this beloved game can bring you. To do so, I will follow the bankroll rules of Chris Ferguson. For those who do not want to read through Chris' post I will sum it up for you:

Never buy into a cash game or a Sit & Go with more than 5 percent of your total bankroll (there is an exception for the lowest limits: allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less).

Never buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of your total bankroll. You are allowed to buy into any multi-table tournament that costs $1.

If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of your total bankroll, you must leave the game when the blinds reach you.

The next step is analyzing myself and really digging deep to figure out where and why I am losing my money. I have always been a player who done self reviews the old fashion way. I reviewed my hand history one hand at a time and used a composition book to make notes about my play. I have always heard and read about programs that can do a lot of this for you like PokerTracker and PokerOffice, but I never put much thought into them. My opinion on the matter has always been that when you play at a live game you will not have a computer telling you what you need to do. Today's players rely on applications to tell them what they need to do in certain situations. Instead of playing poker and trying to get into the heads of their follow opponents, they follow push-shove calculations reported from a third party program and base all their plays on what the computer tells them. Lately my opinion is starting to change. I've heard PokerTracker mentioned a few times in some of the more recent books I've read. It's been noted as great tool to analyze your hands, fix leaks in your game, find leaks in your opponent's game, and use the information to capitalize on potential profitable situations. When I read such verbiage in books from Sklansky and others, I always held it with a grain of salt. I would tell myself that those programs are all well and good, but at a real table your not going to have those tools telling you what you need to do. It wasn't until I was watching a recent video on PokerXFactor when Eric Haber mentioned the use of PokerTracker. During his commentary he mentioned something on the lines of "if your not using such a program your operating at a huge disadvantage because it's very likely that your opponents are tracking you". Then it dawned on me. Whether I disagree with the use of such programs or not, it doesn't really matter. My opponents are using such programs against me, so not only do I need to fight them - but also their computer. When I win a sit-and-go or a tournament, I had to triumph the player and his odds calculator. To me it's a greater accomplishment, but a silly one at that. It's silly because I too can be mining for information to use against my opponent which would make that part of the game even. Now all I need to be able to do is out think my opponent and I should be able to win.

I've always considered poker as an "equal" game. Every player is dealt the same amount of good cards and bad cards and every player is offered the same amount of information about each other while they are at the table. It's the players who know what to do with the good cards, and know how to read their opponents that end up profitable at the year's end. With the hype of the Internet, poker oods are even more important - and players are using any tool in the world to provide them with information about their table and their opponents. If everyone at my table is mining for data, and I am not, then poker is no longer an "equal" game. I am operating at a disadvantage as soon as I sit down.

Disadvantage no more, I have purchased PokerTracker and I am currently analyzing my play. I have been focusing on where I lose the most chips and why. I believe that after some thorough studying I will be able to plug some of my leaks and hopefully make me a more solid/consistant player. I am also messing around with Poker HUD. I never checked out such a program before and I must admit it does seem overwhelming at first. I really need to figure out what numbers I should watch for and how exactly I can use this information against my opponents. (If anyone is savvy in Poker HUD and willing to spend some time to teach me, I would be grateful).

The third and final step I want to talk about in the god-forsakingly long post is taking notes while reading. I have a tendency to read books and assume I will remember all the information I've read. This is obviously false since I am not gifted enough to remember something after I've only read it once. Moving forward, I will reread my current book when I am finished it. This time I will take notes on everything I find important. I will do this on every new book I read and will eventually reread all my books so I can take notes on them. When I am done with a book I should have a healthy amount of notes that I can organize and put in a format much like the one's used in Cliff notes. Such notes I am considering sharing in my blog. I feel the more I go over the notes (writing them on paper, transferring them to computer, then blogging about them) the more I will understand and remember the concepts from the book. Hopefully through a repetitive process I can retain the lessons longer which will force me to have a better understanding of the game. It will also enrich the content of this blog, hopefully giving current readers some greater insights and maybe capturing a few new readers.

Conclusion

This has been a fairly long post. But I think it's important that I speak publicly about where I stand. I do not want to become a blogger who only blogs about their accomplishments. When I first started this blog I wrote that this blog will track my poker career moving forward, through both the ups and downs. I want to keep honest to that part, and I hope that the information here can someday aid another player who experiencing the same problems in their career. Maybe this and future post will inspire them, help them get back on track, and get them winning again. If anything, I hope it helps me do the same.

Borgata & the SJPC

2007-08-16T14:12:00.001-05:00

Tournament Prize List

Yesterday was a decent day for an SJPC member as Sana and myself both played "hooke" from work for a chance to play in the $10,000 Guarantee Tournament ($50 + 10) at the Borgata in Atlantic City. This tournament is one that Sana and I have talked about playing for a long time, but never both have been off on a Wednesday to take a drive to AC and give it a go. One of the reasons we were so interested in playing in this tournament was that we felt the tournament would be an easy field being that it's hosted on a Wednesday at 11AM. Unfortunately for us, the day we decided to go was one of their largest fields ever, seating 481 players and 333 of them opted for the Add-on. The grand total prize pool over $40,000 paying down to 45th place.

For most of the tournament both myself and Sana sat around the same amount of chips. During the third break we met up and talked about our stacks and what we needed to do to keep alive in this tournament. Unfortunately for us we were both short stacked and close to being down to the felt. Sana was desperate, not able to survive another orbit; while I needed to make a move with in two orbits. It became a situation for both of us that we needed to take some chances and try to accumulate chips else we would be gobbled up by the blinds.

I sat back at my table and waited for my spot to go. Every time I was dealt a holding that would have worked for an open shove, two-three players went all-in before me and I reluctantly folded. A few times I would have been victor, winning a massive pot - but instead I just sat there trying to be patient, waiting for the opportunity of "first in vigorous". Finally I was UTG with the magic hand, pocket Aces and I tried to figure out how I could maximize my profit from the hand. The action at my table had been brutal, several players were going all-in on almost every hand. I decided to limp in hoping for some shove action figuring it would be the best way to entice a shove. Unfortunately for me it folded to the Big Blind (even SB folded) and he went all in for 2000 more (his BB was 4000). He showed down AJ and I won a small pot. A few hands later I open shove with JT suited and K8 calls. I flop four to a flush and get no love on the turn or river and was sent to the rail finishing 87th.

At this point in time I was searching for Sana. What shape was he in? Was he busted out? Still small stacked? Double through? Finally I found him sitting at a couple tables down from were I was busted. When I approached him he had a mound of chips in front of him and I was a little shocked. The the break he had 7k in chips (2K/4K, 500 ante) and now sat with a wealthy amount of chips. Catching me sort of dumbfounded, he leans over and tells me he was all in on the blinds and won that race then later got pocket Kings and took a massive pot - he's been on a roll ever since.

As timed ticked by Sana was in the top 45, guaranteeing himself that he will at least walk away with his money back. But such results were not good enough for him. He knocked several players out on his table with pocket-Queens followed by back-to-back Ace-Tens. This allowed Sana to build a massive chip stack, 3-4 times the amount than any one else at the table. When Sana had to move to Table #3, it took two tournament directors to assist him in relocating his chips. That must have been a good feeling.

Tournament Director Helping Sana Stack His Chips

As the tournament went on Sana remained at a healthy stack, only taking one huge hit when his AK suited lost to Pocket-Nines; Sana hit all types of Royalty on the flop and Turn, but a 4th diamond came on the river giving the Pocket-Nines a miracle flush. Time ticked by, and one-by-one players stood and walked away from the tables.

I railed for Sana all the way down to third place when he ended up doubling a short stack and taking a prize chop. For his efforts, Sana took home approx $5,300 minus dealer tip and his buy-in. Not bad for a 9 1/2 hour day. Congrats for a well played game goes out to him. I hope that next time we play "hooke" we both can face off at the final table.

Sana Playing at One of the final few tables

In other events: I have now took the SJPC Donkey Time! Tournament Crown for the Fourth time; leaving me as the only player to win the event four times, and the first player to win it back-to-back. I hope that my luck continues in the tournament that the field can continue to grow. All readers please feel free to join us Monday nights at 7:30 PM EST.

If you're wondering how Sana doubled the small stack up, Sana open shoved all-in with AJ suited and the BB called with A-2. The BB hit a 2 on the river leaving Sana the low stack on the table.

Third Time Champion, SJPC

2007-08-06T21:47:00.000-05:00

Tonight was a good night. Not because it's the first night I am finishing in the positive in which seems to be one of my longest loosing streaks in my poker career, but the fact that those wins come from two interesting tournaments.

The first victory is another take-down in the WPEX MTT Gaurantee. The second victory I am really excited about is the third win in the SJPC Donkey Time! Tournament. The field was the smallest it's ever been (since the first tournament), and the competition was strong. But it's not the strong-small field, or the prize of winning the tournament (the WPEX paided a lot better), it's the fact that I am the first one to ever win it three times, making me the King of Donkey's again!

I am really satisfied with the strong heads-up game I played in the SJPC Tournament. It lasted for 114 hands and I had multiple times to go bust (i.e., opponent shoving all in when I have open-ended draw, or middle pair-top kicker.) The heads-up game is definately one I'd like to review in the future. I believe there are a few interesting decisions and plays that could be a lot of fun to discuss. As always I am very curious on what some of you might have done in my situation. Unfortunately until I can gather all the information and put it together for a blog, I must call it a night and book my win for the day.

To read a summary of my third win, go here.

Read Your Sklansky

2007-07-28T08:28:00.000-05:00

I have blogged about weak starting hands and the importance of position numerous times. Most poker players know that the better the position, the weaker the cards you can play. In a recent SJPC Tournament the following hand occurred:

It was the very first hand in the game on Full Tilt Poker, everyone starts out with 1500T and the blinds 15/30.

My Holecards:

UTG Folds
UTG +1 (Villain) calls
Table folds to the Button whom also folds
Small Blind continues
Hero in the Big Blind raises to 175 (75 in pot).

Before we go on let me explain my read on these opponents. The Villain likes to play a lot of cards and will usually play (and call raises) if it's "cheap". He's an average player who makes questionable plays from time to time. The small blind is a very aggressive player who will also play if it's cheap. While the small blind is not afraid to re-raise and push all in if he senses weakness post-flop, he is disciplined enough to fold a medium strength/OK hand out of position facing aggression preflop.

I really want to isolate the Villain here. I have confidence I can out play him and I believe my bet is low enough for him to call; however, I believe it's high enough for the SB to fold even though he would be offered over 2.5:1 (if the Villain calls). I am also 'OK' with buying the pot here. It is the first hand of the tournament and my hand is only Ace-high, but my bet of 175 wanted some action. Normally if I wanted to purchase the pot against these two players I might have three-bet the pot, making it 225T. This may sound pricey but I am out of position to an early limper who hates to fold preflop.

The Villain calls
The SB Folds
380T in the pot

The Flop:

Let's take a moment to state the obvious: I got the action I wanted and after the flop I have two over cards with a backdoor flush draw. Normally I might make a continuation bet here, but since my opponent knows I like to continue bet after showing a healthy raise preflop; and I knowing that he is the type of player who could be in this hand with such a wide variety of cards - I figured it would be best to check. He's expecting me to bet here and if I do he can either fold, call, or raise. He knows I'd bet out on this flop regardless if I hit my hand or not, so he will likely call and attempt to steal on the turn, or raise hard at it now and force me to fold. Playing with this person he raises in this situation after a continuation bet more then not. So I mix up my play a little and just check.

Villain Checks
Pot remains 380T

The Turn:

The check from the Villain on the flop is strange unless he is on some sort of draw. But the 5 on the Turn shouldn't have helped him unless he had pocket-5s. Even then I would think that trips would have fired on the flop to protect their hand. The spade did help me, it now gave me a draw to the second nut flush.

Hero bets 200T
Villain calls

Pot is now 780T

The River:

The Jack-of-Spades is an interesting card. I no longer have the second nuts; Ks & 10s, 10s & 8s, and As are all beating me. However, the way this hand played out the only hand that would make sense would be the As plus another Ace.

Pocket Aces would justify the limp UTG+1 then the smooth call on my raise. When the flop came down he still had a nice hand with the Ace of Spades and wanted to bait me a little so he checks. When the Turn came around he now was drawing to a Full House and a Flush Draw (at the time the nut-flush draw) so this explains the call of 200 and not a raise. He knows I am an aggressive player and he wants me to make a hand that I can loose all my chips on.

The problem I face is that I did make a strong flush and my instincts are telling me I am ahead. Almost every time I've played against this opponent, my instincts have been correct. I lost a huge pot against him recently in a live game when my instincts told me I was beat, but I talked myself into calling and lost a ton of chips which cost me that tournament. Going with my instincts I lead out with my flush hoping for a call.

Hero bets 500T
Villain moves all-in for 1125T

I'm at a tough decision, although he's play suggest he has the Ace-high flush I still have a feeling that I am ahead. I actually called Time on this hand and didn't make a decision until the clock counted down to '1'. I called, going purely by my instincts that I had the best hand. This is actually totally against my golden rule of tournament poker:

Never go all-in on the first hand unless you have the absolute nuts.

Before we get into what hand he had and how this relates to Sklansky I wanted to point out the first "lesson". I made this call because I had faith in my instincts and listened to them. Sometimes in poker you have to go by your instincts or your reads regardless of what the odds or board may suggest. Of course you will not always be correct but if you always play scared and fold instead of playing with some heart you will never play above the rim. Professional players make a ton of money off of what spectators may call trivial moves or plays - however the pro player making those moves usually has strong instincts/reads on the situation and he gets paid. But like any other human player, sometimes they look like a donkey if their instincts are wrong and call a bet or attempt a bluff that costs them all their chips - you just can't fault someone who played off their instincts/reads even if it ended up being a bad play. At least they had heart to do what they felt was correct regardless of their odds.

My Villain made his demise with:

He obviously made multiple errors on this hand which ended up costing him all his chips. Let's forget for a moment that he never took the lead, he chased to an inside straight-draw, pushed all in on his straight when there was a four card flush on the board with possible full-house/quads situation... Instead let's take it back to the beginning where he could have saved himself a lot of aggravation. David Sklansky wrote the following advice in his book entitled, "Small Stakes Hold'em - Winning Big with Expert Play":

Most players make two major preflop mistakes. They are costly... they are

1. Playing weak hands out of position, particularly weak off-suite hands.

2. Cold-calling raises with mediocre and potentially dominated hands

Unfortunately for the Villain he made both of those mistakes. Disregard the fact that he didn't necessarily "cold-call" the raise with a mediocre hand. I believe you can read in between the lines and note that you can't call big raises with mediocre and potentially dominated hands either. If you need further reassurance, remember the aged-old saying, "you need a stronger hand to call a raise then you need to raise with".

In this situation the Villain played a weak off-suite hand out of position (when he limped) into a field of unknown players. Then proceeded to capitalize on his error by calling a raise with another player limped in the pot as well. This then cost him to chase down a hand what when he finally made his "dream hand" he faced a ton of cards/hands that would cripple him. Lastly, instead of calling the 500 on the River he furthered his self-destruction by moving all-in. A bet in which all he could beat was a bluff.

In conclusion I must reemphasize that playing weak hands in early position, and calling raises with easily dominated hands can cost you a lot of money in the long run. The problem you face is that when/if you finally make the hand you'd hope for, you might already be beat.

Don't Tap on the Aquarium

2007-07-18T19:31:00.000-05:00

As I watch my dear friend get sucked out on the third time in one night, I must remind him; "please sir, don't tap the aquarium."

It's inevitable isn't it? Your sitting there with a monster hand and another player gets all in with a dominated hand - or worse yet, with only 1-3 outs; then BAMM! Your eye's open wide, your mouth drops, and you stand there like someone just hit you over the head; you just been sucked out on and lost a monster pot - or worse yet, knocked out of the tournament. As a regular poker player I can't count the number of times where I've been drawn out and lost all my chips to another's mistake. How many of us had their Ace's cracked when all the money went in preflop? How about your Kings when your facing pocket-twos? Got Trips and someone shoves with nothing more to an inside-straight draw with one card to come? Already know the result?

I can go on all night and talk about these types of situations, the problem is that it will not do any good. Ever since the Big Poker Bang of 2003, multitudes of people from all walks of life have gained interest in poker. Most of these "players" have gotten used to the fast-paced, super aggressive poker that is aired across the world. These new breed of players want to take shots, gamble, and show everyone at the table that they will not be bossed out of the pot - even if they hold K5 os UTG. Some of these players run very lucky and win thousands in just a few short months. Their poker portfolio can look more impressive than a person's who have been playing for years. They show multiple online table wins, big scores, and no one can stop them. These new players might even get honorable mention in media sources like CardPlayer Magazine for their unbelievable rushes. But with every success story comes hundreds - if not thousands - of losses.

As much as I respect Phil Hellmuth as a knowledgable player I can never cheer for him in a tournament because of his constant bickering at the table. Phil has no problem calling fish, fish - and donkeys, donkeys. The same goes for other great players like Mike Matasow; these players make sure that everyone at their table knows they been sucked out on when it happens. What people like Phil fail to realize is that these are the same people that aided him in receiving his 11th bracelet this year. The reason Mike ran 2nd on the Bellagio Cup III. These fish are the ones who donate their chips time after time, giving the patient and skilled players their take.

What I am about to say applies to my friend, along with the likes of Phil Hellmuth and Mike the Mouth. "Don't tap on the Aquarium". You see this sign all over any major aquarium, and it's promptly displayed on those huge gigantic bowls of water. They place these signs there because tapping on the aquarium disturbs the fish.

Why would a player want someone who always puts their money in when they have the best hand to stop and start putting their money in with the worse? Why do you want your opponent to start playing correctly? Do you not face enough challenging people at your table that you warrant another? Pardon my ignorance, but I can not possibly think of one reason why you do not want a clueless person in your game.

Sure I've been sucked out on numerous times. I've had my Aces cracked, I've lost monster hands to miracle cards, and even been on the negative end of a one-outer. The fact is, it doesn't matter. Sure we get upset and we want to reach over and strangle the bastard for calling all his chips off with a draw, or some weak holding; but why tell that opponent that he did wrong?

Let's look at a few reasons why you shouldn't tap on glass that holds water:

1. You are telling the person he/she is playing incorrect. The person might start analyzing situations more and make less mistakes. Poker is a break even game if everyone plays optimally. You make a profit when another player makes a negative EV move.

2. You might chase away that player. Most people do not like being insulted. They might feel embarrassed or have hard feelings and leave the game. Some times they never come back to play in your game - instead he's donating to your neighbors game that you don't play in.

3. You're announcing to the other players that your tilting. Good players are going to pick up on this and play back at you with weaker hands which can have diasterous results to your bankroll.

4. You will make money on the long run. Poker is not a game of now. It's a game of then and when. Your past added with your future gives you the bases of what type of player you are and going to be. If you lose to this player tonight, or even this month - as long as you play your game (which is more skillful then his) you will be profitable. Luck only last so long, eventually skill has to even everything out to keep the system balanced.

While some of you can come up with a few more reasons, the point I am trying to make is there is no reason to berate a bad player. Instead encourage his play. Laugh about the suck out, shake his hand. Congratulate him on his monster win then get the chips back. You want these players sitting at your table because they are the ones that put money in your bankroll. They donate their hard earn money night after night chasing dreams and draws. Today you just got unlucky and you had to make a contribution to the poker community. There is nothing you can do - you have to expect a larger amount of variance with so make armatures now playing poker. These variances can be huge and unavoidable, but it does you no good when trying to recoup your losses if you scare all the fish away.

So the next time a player rivers his 1 outer and knocks you out of the tournament on the bubble; and you sit there pondering how he could call your preflop raise, your bet on the flop, and your check-raise all in on the turn with nothing more then a draw.... stop and realize that you're playing poker. In today's poker, nothing has to make sense - just keep getting your money in with the best hand and eventually the scale will balance out in your favor. Just do everyone else at the table a favor before you join the rail, "Don't tap on the aquarium, it disturbs the fish."

Kings of Donkey's... Again!

2007-07-16T21:40:00.001-05:00

After 220 hands I placed first again in the weekly SJPC Donkey Time! Tournament. The fields in this tournament may be small, but there are some really good players. A lot of thought goes into almost every hand especially at the end. Heads up lasted 45 hands and it was a roller coaster on who was the chip leader. It seemed like every 5 hands someone would win a large enough pot to take the lead.

I won because of my selective aggression. Almost every player on the table got tired of me at one point for constantly putting them to the test; but when you have a big stack and have decent hands you don't want to give short stacks a chance to catch a monster. I constantly applied pressure and pulled back when faced with resistance - as long as their story added up. It also was a bonus that in the very first hand I doubled up. My opponent chased a straight and made it on the river but got greeted by a King-high flush. This is a hand that I will revisit in the near future; I think it's an interesting lesson why you shouldn't play medium strength cards out of position, and why chasing can be disastrous, even if you hit your hand.

For now I would like to thank everyone who has been showing up regularly to play in the SJPC. We even been having some regular spectators which is always nice. I send out a warm welcome to all fellow bloggers to join the SJPC Monday night game on FTP. You can find out more information by visiting this link.

Until next time, good luck everyone!

Poker Cheats

2007-07-15T11:37:00.000-05:00

Second in SJPC, Lucko at WSOP

2007-07-10T22:41:00.002-05:00

Last Monday was an interesting game hosted by SJPC on Full Tilt. For most of the game I ran as the low stack due to losing a large pot early by failing to complete my open-ended straight & flush draw. Thankfully I played proper bubble strategy and was able to accumulate chips. I ended up going heads up as a massive underdog and double through to tie it up.

The final hand got tricky. My image was super aggressive so I chose not to differ; I raised 3x BB with AJ os. My opponent immediately shoved all in. I was in a semi tough decision because I new I been super aggressive and raising a lot of pots. On a side note I kind of wanted him to shove, on tilt, when I originally raised with the AJ - he just took a huge loss the hand before and he has been having to fold often to my reraises. Trying to make a decision, I ran out the "Time" option on Full Tilt to the last second before I clicked CALL. My opponent shows 99 and is in the lead by about 10%. The flop brought him a ton of draws, the turn brought me my jack, and the river gave him his trips. I finished second defending my title.

I know I wanted to win the tournament back to back, but I am really happy with my finish. I was a in some serious hurt when I was the short stack and was fortunate enough to not get eliminated - even more fortunate ending up having a fair shot at finishing first! I'm anticipating another good finish next week - I'm going for consistency in this game.

In other news I would like to bring some attention to fellow blogger Kevin "Lucko21" O'Brian. Kevin has had a fairly decent run so far at the WSOP. He was able to build up a really nice stack but had an unfortunate hand that ended his Day 1 down 100k. He has 49k starting Day 2 and updates are being posted frequently on his blog. Be sure to check it out and wish him some luck.

Go Lucko!

Plans for July

2007-07-05T07:30:00.001-05:00

A quick update before heading to work: Not much happen for me in June. I had a huge hot streak followed by a massive cold run. At least I was able to manage my losses and still end up in the positive between the two. I have some plans for July to restructure my game. My focus this month is going to be micro-limit SNGs and small cash games. Yes, I am going to introduce cash games to my poker career. I never been much of a cash game player but to consistently bring in the money I believe this is something every player must do. I will start out at small stakes and attempt to work myself up. My ultimate goal is this time next year be at the WSOP and not sitting at work dreaming about it. The idea is to allow the poker earnings to pay for the trip and the games. I have a few "strategies" in mind and I will discuss about which ones worked at a later date.

I really feel good about July and things started out nicely. My first game of the month, SJPC Donkey Time! Tournament on Full Tilt, ended with a first place finish - making me the King of Donkeys for a week. I am looking forward to next Monday to defend my title. So far no one has won this game back-to-back, but I have a good feeling about it - we will see what happens.

The Rule of 4 and 2

2007-06-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

I am horrible at math. I am one of those people who use a calculator for everything, including addition. I even have a macro button on my keyboard that allows me to launch my calculator with one press. When I am on other computers, Start > Run > Calc is my best friend. When you play poker to make money, math becomes an important element of the game. You are constantly figuring out odds and need to make decisions fast. Such actions come natural to most with any sort of basic math knowledge, but for me it comes rather difficult. It's not that I don't know how to add, multiply, or subtract - it's just that my mind sees two separate numbers that require an action to make one number and my mind goes lazy and doesn't compute. I sit there with a blank stare on my face while my brain decides how much effort it's going to take to "crunch these numbers". This of course becomes a problem if you want to play poker to make money. While I could force myself to memorize charts and percentages, I rather turn to some simpler method's of figuring out my odds.

One of those method's was outlined in Final Table Poker with Phil Gordon and is called the Rule of 4 and 2. What this "rule" allows you to do is take how many outs you have and ballpark your percentage to make your hand from the flop and from the turn. How it works is you figure out how many outs you have and if your on the flop you multiply your outs by 4, if your on the turn you multiply your outs by 2 - whatever answer you get is the estimated percentage you have of making your hand.

Let me use the following as an example; your drawing to a Straight. After the flop you calculate that you have 8 outs left in the deck to make your Straight. If you take your 8 outs and multiply them by 4 you get 32 - so you have 32% in favor to improve your hand. The actual percentage in this scenario is 31.5%. Impressively close? Now imagine a blank comes out on the Turn, you calculate your outs as still being 8, but this time instead of multiplying your outs by 4, you will multiply them by 2 and get 16 - or 16%. Actual percentage to improve to your Straight is 17.4%.

While this Rule of 4 and 2 is not dead on accurate, it does enable you to quickly figure out about where you stand if your hand needs improving. Using the Rule of 4 and 2 and incorporating it into Pot Odds and Implied Odds has enable me to make quicker decisions when I am playing online or at a real table. I also believe that the method is so simple that anyone can use it and incorporate it into their games immediately. When I first heard about this method a year ago I was completely amazed on how quick and easy I could calculate my percentage to make my hand using the Rule of 4 and 2 - I have been using it since.

For those of you who have watched Phil Gordon's video, this is nothing new to you. But for those who have not, this might seem like a surprise - a good one at that. For your viewing pleasure I have crafted a chart that shows your outs, from 1 to 20, and ran the numbers of 4 and 2, then compared them with actual percentages. I hope you find this chart useful or at least entertaining.

In conslusion, if your not a math whiz take a lesson from me and make math easy by using shortcuts. Use the Rule of 4 and 2 and make your decisions easier when your in the hot seat.

SJPC Game, Every Monday

2007-06-06T23:16:00.000-05:00

Join the SJPC next Monday!

Replacements: "Like Quicksand"

2007-06-01T23:27:00.000-05:00

Recently I was watching one of my favorite football movies, the Replacements. While I am not a football fan, at all, this is a movie that I can never get enough of. What does all this have to do with Poker?

In one of the scenes the team was having a meeting discussing "fears". After a comical barage of fears that included spiders and bees; Shane Falco, played by Keanu Reeves, talks about "Quicksand". When I listed to him speak what "quicksand" ment it seemed to resemble a common poker fear known as "tilt". We all know the semi-common definition of tilt. Usually it's something in the lines of "after a player loses a large pot he plays recklessly making bad raises and calls and eventually costing him a lot of chips". A shorter definition, "when a player is heated they make bad plays that they normally wouldn't and lose a lot of money". These two, plus many others can describe what tilt is, but I think Shane Falco describes it best when he talks about "quicksand":

You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand.

If you look at it in the point of view of the tilter; you just lost a big pot... maybe by a suckout. The next hand you play aggressive, and lose. Then you play even more aggressive, and lose. Eventually you look down and you realize that you just gave away most of your chips and your down to the felt. You have a sick feeling in your stomach and you feel like everyone at the table has luck on their side but you. Even if you know you tilted, you sit there... steamed... thinking "why can't I catch at least one freaking hand".

As a poker player, I know I've been there and I am sure you have too. We all tilt from time to time, and even the best players in the world will go on tilt. It's part of the game. The best in the business tell you to just walk away, get up and leave the table. Cool off, then come back. They tell you this because it keeps you from getting too deep, losing all your money and putting yourself down to the felt. It's very important to remember to just walk away, and doing so can save you tons of money in the long run.

The point of this post? See Replacements, it's a great movie. But also remember the words of Clifford Franklin, "Quicksand, it's a scary mother man".

Lastly, Good luck to all the WSOP players out there!

Long Awaited Chart

2007-05-17T21:19:00.000-05:00

Sorry for all those who were waiting for these charts. I had some things come up in my life that forced me to get pulled away from poker for a short while. I will save that for another entry, but without further a'do:

Building the Stack

2007-03-26T18:53:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since my last entry. I apologize for my absence. In my previous blog I talked about the importance of recognizing tournament blind structure and changing your game to fit the game structure you are about to play. For example, you have the freedom to play more conservatively during a game with long/slow blind levels then you do in a game where the blinds move up quickly compared to your starting chips. Most poker players who are serious about making money have took the time to read a few poker books. This is definitely a great guideline to get you started, but what you really need to understand is you need to apply what you learned in those books and adapt them to your current tournament. This sometimes means that you need to adjust your starting requirements slightly to take advantage of your situation.

In the coming posts I will talk about what I have found to be +EV hands to play when compared to your position and stack size. The information revealed is a meer guideline; your current situation always dictates whether a move is correct or not. I believe that not only will the amateurs of the game find the following information helpful, but it will raise questions for some of the better players. I am not claiming the information to be 100% accurate, and the information is catered to fast tournaments. Tournaments that will blind you out in an hour (hour & half) or less if you do not play a hand. Feedback is always welcomed and I hope you enjoy reading my findings.

The guy who got blinded away

2007-03-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

I think every poker player has at least done the following themselves or know someone who matches this description. Usually the following player is new to poker and taking the first steps in bettering their play. This player is the one who reads their first Harrington and feels they now have enough knowledge to play some tournaments. They jump online and take their shot at a decently sized MMT. Next thing this player knows is he is down to an M of 4 and is getting desperate. "FINALLY! Pocket Queens, definitely a hand I am shoving all in on the cutoff", thinks the player. The table folds to our player and he makes his shove. Big Blind calls with 7-8 suited and nails a straight. Our player is now on tilt and goes running to his friends to tell them about his bad beat story. Usually these stories go something like this, "I didn't played many hands, I followed what Harrington said. Play premium hands and start to discount suited connectors if your down on your chips. Now I am down to an M of 4 and dealt pocket Queens on the cutoff. I shoved all in and the guy calls with 7-8 suited and sucks out. How can he call me when I been tight the whole game with just 8 high? This is the worse bad beat ever".

What our player's friend should do is tell him the truth, it's not a bad beat. In fact, it was probably a really good call by the big blind and he just got unlucky. I see these type of post a lot on message forums; go to any poker site that has a "Bad Beat" section in their forums and you will see post like this. A lot of players, claiming to be knowledgeable - knowing their Harrington, still get busted out in similar fashion time and time again. Why?

The problem these players fail to realize is that when Harrington, and most other professional poker players, wrote their tournament books they did so with in mind structures of big MMT games (WPT/WSOP). These games have long blind levels and deep stacks and because of their structure you can wait for big hands and play conservatively. You can even play the opposite and take chances to get chips... you can play however you want because you have a lot of chips and time. When you look at online tournaments, most of them do not have such a relaxed structure. The blinds come up fast and they do sneak up on a lot of players. For an example let's take a look at a live tournament structure and an online structure, then let's compare the two and see what differences they have.

For our live tournament structure, let's use the 2005 Caribbean Poker Adventure. Players start with 10,000 in chips. The first 6 blind levels are:

For our online tournament structure, let's use the $26,000 Guarantee on Full Tilt Poker. Players start with 1,500 chips. The first 6 blind levels are:

At first glance the online tournament doesn't seem so bad. After all your going bust in the 6th level assuming you do not play nor win a hand in the live tournament while in the online tournament, at the same blind level, you have $1,150 of your starting $1,500. This can not be a bad thing, can it? Actually, it's not as good as it seems. Before I explain the reasoning behind this, let's take a deeper look on what the chart is representing.

Each chart outlines the values of the first six blind levels. They then take the starting chip amounts and calculate the average amount of times one would sit through the blind levels. For an average we use 20 minutes an orbit for live games and 12 minutes per online orbit. These of course are just averages and for simplicity we consider ten players per table. What these charts actually reveal to us are the blind off times for these two tournaments. In the 2005 Caribbean Poker Adventure you can play 8.67 hours before being blinded away. In the $26,000 Guarantee on FTP you can play 1.81 hours before joining the rail, netting a difference of 6.86 hours. For fun factor, here is the chart showing when you would be blinded out from FTP:

What does all this mean? The most obvious difference is how long it will take before your blinded off. When playing in a tournament you need to consider how fast the blinds will be moving and calculate how much time it will take until your stack would be blinded off. Obviously the more time the better, but when your facing a difference of 6.86 hours of play - you have to make moves sooner then you normally would. The extra hands you get to play in an online tournament do not make up the difference of missing 6.86 hours of play. I'm not claiming that online tournaments are too fast and justify erratic play to ensure money. In fact, the $26,000 Guarantee tournament starting out with 75 big blinds is not as much as a speed tournament then others. Some might even say that this tournament is anywheres from a medium-to-slow tournament for online standards. Maybe a better example would have been to use a popular No-Limit Las Vegas tournament structure hosted at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. Let's take a look at their structure: Each player starts with 1,000 chips.

Surprisingly the blind off structure for this game is 1.26 hours, 0.55 hours shorter then the online tournament on Full Tilt Poker. Even more surprising is that such structures are common in casino's across the world since the poker boom. Casino's want fast tournaments so they can run more daily and accumulate more rake. It makes sense for the casino, but it doesn't make sense for a player to use the same strategies in the Flamingo tournament as they would in the Caribbean tournament.

What a player must realize is when your faced with rapidly increasing blinds, you must make some moves and turn on the aggression switch faster then you would in a slow tournament. Every tournament; whether a slow tournament or a fast tournament, has a point where everyone at the table tightens up allowing an alert player opportunities to accumulate (steal) chips. In Sit-N-Go's this is usually the bubble position. In MTTs this might not be the case and some times happens a few places away from the bubble. Great poker players know when such nirvana is in effect and act on it immediately. Decent players act on this as well, but usually get involved a little later then they could of and don't fully exploit the situation. Weak players miss this opportunity, either too scared or don't even realize it's there. I am assuming that almost everyone reading this blog post knows what I am talking about. But what I want to stress is that unless you are a complete master in recognizing when this happens, and can fully exploit this time period to build enough chips for a healthy final table battle, you need to start accumulating chips earlier in a fast tournament. You are just not going to be able to collect the chips needed in this time period to build up a decent stack for a final table battle and still fight the ever increasing blind levels. You want / need chips going into that final table - more then you would when the blinds are slow and long. You need to have the cushion to play strong poker and be able to put pressure on your opponents. It does no good if your final table seats 10 and you have a short stack and need to make a move in the next 3 orbits. You have no fold equality and no one is folding to your all in. This is a common situation for many players that can be avoided.

This blog has seemed to become pretty long therefor in a following post I want to talk more about what types of "moves" and "shots" I mean when playing in a fast tournament. What I am hoping you gather from this post is the understanding that when you are about to play a tournament you need to analyze the blind structure. Is this a fast or slow tournament? What is my blind off time? What is my starting stack divided into the starting big blind? When do I need to start making moves so my chips mean something when I make a play? These questions can help you focus on a game plan and not be another player riding the short stack hoping to fold their way into the money.

Arnold Snyder's website, Poker Tournament Formula, is focused around his book with the same name. In his book he describes the differences of slow tournaments and fast tournaments in greater detail. I recommend anyone interesting in learning more about why it's not only important to change your style of play in a fast tournament then if you were in a slow tournament, but also how you should do it. Arnold's website also includes the excel spreadsheet used to calculate the blind off time. I think you will find the information in his book and on his website very informative regardless of your skill level. I look forward to further discussing how to overcome fast tournament blind structures in future post. Until then, may your Aces hold up (mine never do) :-)

Roshambo

2007-03-04T09:25:00.000-05:00

In The Poker Tournament Formula author Arnold Snyder brings a new, simplified way of looking at poker. In the book, Arnold compares poker to the famous game Roshambo, or otherwise known as; Rock, Paper, Scissors. I believe this to be an interesting concept, one that I been wanting to discuss for several weeks now. In the book, Arnold makes claim that for you to win at a poker tournament you need to understand what weapons you have available. When you look at poker, look at it as a game of roshambo. For those of you who may have forgot, roshambo is a game of three weapons; rock, paper, and scissors. You and your opponent count to three and use your hand to make a symbol representing one of the three weapons of the game. The following structure determines who wins the round:

Rock beats Scissors
Scissors beats Paper
Paper beats Rock

When you look at poker you can consider that the game has a similar structure. To understand how poker is similar to roshambo you need to understand the three primary weapons you have when you play poker; chips, cards, and position. Now we need to understand the relationship between the three weapons of roshambo and the three weapons of poker. If you consider chips being rocks (easy to remember because you can throw both of them), paper being cards (cards are made from paper), and position being scissors (you can cut any one's action in poker if your in position) you should have no problem figuring out what has strength over the other. For those of you who'd like to see the relationship let's put them into a similar structure as we did with before:

Chips beat Position
Position beats Cards
Cards beat Chips

If you really think about the above three lines it actually makes a lot of scense. If you have enough chips someone playing position doesn't matter, it's harder for him to put pressure on you when you have 10k in chips and he has 2k and in position. However, someone playing their position correctly can make a player fold good hands or good cards before and after the flop. For instance, someone drawing to a flush or maybe has a high pair on a scary board the person in position can charge them to draw if he feels his opponent is weak forcing his opponent to fold with absolutely nothing himself. As well, if you got the goods it doesn't matter how many chips your opponent has your not going to be intimidated. The same player with 2k chips and the nut flush is looking to double through the player with 10k chips.

While there are definitely differences from roshambo and poker, the concept of the two being similar is awesome. Now obviously you can't choose your weapons in poker, it just sort of happens. You might be in position now with a small stack and a few hands later be out of position but have a huge stack. As well, your weapons don't hold up 100% of the time. Whereas scissors always beats paper, someone on the button pushing all in against a UTG limper with pocket Aces, paper isn't loosing (unless he's dealt my Aces in the whole *s*).

I really think this whole concept is brilliant, yet so simple. If more beginner players just realized this sort of relationship they'd strengthen their game almost immediately. Why? Because it's a simplified way of knowing how poker works. Everything we read in poker books can almost be related back to this simple concept of poker being a game of roshambo. We just add more complexity and weapons to our arsenal as we become more skilled at playing the game. But all these extras are still built off the basics of poker; chips, cards, and position.

February is Over

2007-03-02T19:34:00.000-05:00

February is officially in the books. The month started out as an attempt to make some great goals. Let's revisit them briefly to see what we set out to accomplish:

Read Mathematics of Poker
Post more poker strategy talk and hand analyst on the blog
Take down 4 Guarantee tournaments on WPEX
Final Table a Mookie on FTP
Get back on track with my exercise
Build more confidence in my game
Visit A.C. at least twice

What actually happen is February turned into a training month and none of the goals really got accomplished. I spent tons of cash this month practicing new theories, playing games blind (practicing position), and working on strategies discussed in books and on the web. It's amazing how much money I spent on "finding out what works" I am surprised I finished in the money for the month. Before we get into my Win/Loss record for the month, lets look at what we did accomplish for the month.

Read "The Poker Tournament Formula"
Reading "Mathematics of Poker"
Played more live games (just not in AC)
Practiced playing blind and worked on position
Watched hours of videos from PokerXFactor
Started note taking and critical analysis of my SNGs

Over all I feel that I still have a lot to learn about SNG playing and feel I can really turn SNGs into huge profits. SNGs are so different then normal poker it's really not even poker. It's about time, patience, knowing when to bet and how much to bet. It's really a different animal all together. My leaks are definitely closing up, but I don't feel like I am as solid as I can be. Most of the time I bust out by making the right move while some donkey makes a horrible call and sucks out. I turned this into an "F Results" matter. Before I would be pissed that a guy would call my all in with A-2 OS and bust my pocket Queens; now I say, "good luck to ya" and hope I play him again. As long as I make the correct moves all the time, I will be the one in the positive at the end of the month/year. I consider it a donation to the poker community, one that I know I can get back when I am in another game.

On the downside of things I installed a fresh copy of Vista Ultimate and forgot to backup my player notes. So now I am starting fresh on all my player notes. Really sucks because I had tons of people labeled in WPEX. Almost every table I sat at I knew how they played, now I am clueless or guessing... "I think he's super aggressive, or is he a fish...."

Well while I am on no set topic I will also say I still do have tons of material I want to discuss on my blog. It seems that every time I want to blog something comes up, or I get wrapped into things. One night I spent 9 hours running push/fold EV calculations and didn't realize it was 2AM in the morning with work in about 4 hours. I lost that night and the night after (sleeping!) I guess you can say I been really wrapped up on studying the game and what's behind it than I had time to play and write. Even with the limited play time this month, most of the action I played was to learn and not win which makes my record this month look pretty bad. But without further ado, here is my Win/Loss record for the month.

Tournament Count: 79
Total Buy-ins: $1,186
Total Payouts: $1,380
Total Won/Lost: $194
Average Won/Lost: $2

Like I said, nothing spectacular, but as I mentioned before I am really surprised I came out ahead this month. I am, of course, hoping for a better month in March - we will see what happens. Even though I anticipate a better month I still will be focusing on new tactics and strategies that might end up costing me money. Time will tell what happens.

Aftermath

2007-02-26T08:16:00.000-05:00

Well I am fully recovered from this weekend's games. Being fired up on Saturday went "bye bye" after only getting 4 hours sleep started to wear on me mid day. I kept wanting to take a power nap but something always came up and forced me to stay awake. I went into the SJPC game half asleep but managed to build up a healthy stack early on. Of course hitting a straight flush put a bunch of chips on my side, I was easily the chip leader half way through the action. Then it happen... a bad call on a good read? I'm not sure. I was in the BB and got folded to the SB. The SB is very aggressive, loves to bluff, and loves Ace cards. He limps in and I look down at JJ. The blinds were 500-1000/200 at the time so I pump it up to 4k (no limping allowed sir). He takes about 5 minutes and moves all in. I think about this and figured he is just trying to steal here, to protect his blind. I am really feeling he thinks I am on a bluff but I have some problems. I put him on A-x so I know he has at least one overcard. As well, he is second in command, calling here leaves me with about 18k left over. Folding keeps me almost at 50k. I look at him and say, "I know you got Ace high but I call." Indeed he flips over A-8 and I show my JJ. The flop comes with all unders, the Turn an Ace, and the River an Eight. He wins and becomes massive chip leader. Now I look back on it I guess I shouldn't have called with the Jacks. Technically I made the right call as far as putting your money in with the best hand, but loosing to him crippled me. I soon turned into all in or nothing, and got busted about 7 orbits and 2 blind levels later. Just a horrible way to exit after being the leader for so long. But I blame a lot on myself. I made a few mistakes that cost me chips, plus I was falling asleep doing the action and also battling a massive headache. I blame the headache on the cigar smoking combined with the lack of sleep. But I definitely wasn't focused.

Now it's Monday and it's back to work. Hopefully I can redeem myself this week and get some of the cash back I donked away this weekend. Might do another live game tonight, we will see who's up for playing. Until then, cheers!

Fired up for the weekend

2007-02-24T08:52:00.000-05:00

I woke up early this morning, around 6AM. This is pretty bright for me considering going to sleep at about 2AM. I am fired up though and looking forward to a night of poker. I am down here at the Jersey shore getting ready for an MTT SJPC tourney which should be interesting. We got a nice line up, some aggressive players, a few maniacs, and some tight players. I just hope that the table I am at is a nice setup. There are a few players I just haven't figured out yet so I hope that they get busted early. (Sorry!)

In other news, I've been running pretty good. Online has been ok and I recently took down a live game where I was the "new guy". Same group of people invited me into their league and I am truly considering joining. The guys are a lot of fun and taking down the game my first time there is definitely a motivator.

I hope to post later tonight or tomorrow about the SJPC game, but in the mean time Lucko has posted a very good link that should entertain everyone for a while.

Profiling, real life comparison

2007-02-18T12:16:00.000-05:00

I have a lot I been wanting to discuss but haven't had much time to write since I been focusing a tremendous amount of time on my game. This topic entitled, "Profiling, real life comparison" is one generated about a month ago while I was driving to a client during work. It has been brought to my attention, over the course of talking with my poker friends, that one of the difficulties in poker is profiling a player; whether it's online or in a brink and mortar casino. The problem they face is, "how do I know if I am right?", or the common "I know what he's trying to do but I can't go against him... the one time I do, he will bust me."

While all these comments are true concerns, the problem these players face is the lack of confidence they have in reading their opponent. What they fail to realize is, most of the time... it's not hard to profile someone.

Now I am not talking about looking at a elder guy who seen every day for the last 100 years and you figure him to be a tight player who will just plays the nuts verses the 21-yr old next to him with his ball cap, shades, and FTP jersey who's likely going to be super aggressive. This type of profiling is outlined in any popular poker book, and as well, physical appearance profiling can not only be misleading, but also hold no value to online play. My focus on making profiling easier is more focused for online play than it is for live. This focus will not truly help you make immediate assumptions that "the guy in seat 5 is super aggressive"; but rather open you up to the idea that you can make these assumptions on your own, which isn't as difficult than it may seem.

There is a reason why I included "real life comparison" in this blog's title and that is because I want you to take a moment and compare the action at a poker table to action you see in every day life. Assuming that everyone playing poker is of the legal age I would like to use driving as an example. Lets take a look and profile some of our drivers:

Super Aggressive - These drivers are the road warriors of the highway. They come in all genders and ages, and drive a wide variety of vehicles. These are the drivers who edge up every 5 seconds at a red light and by the time the light is green half their car is in the middle of the road. When the light turns, they are across the street before you even tough your gas pedal. These kats zig-zag out of heavy traffic, often tailgate, use merging ramps as chances to pass a line of cars, and of course, accompany all of their actions with excessive speed. These super aggressive drivers are the one's cops dream of catching and usually get multiple tickets for their actions.

Aggressive - Aggressive drivers are a little more common then your super aggressive. These drivers will still edge up at red lights, but don't smoke the tires when it turns green. They drive fast and take opportunities to pass cars with minimal risk. They some times get brave and will use some traits from the super aggressive driver, but for the most part they just want to get to where ever they are going in a hurry.

Selective (Tight) Aggressive - These drivers seem to be the most common in my area, your area may differ. These drivers are the ones that still hang out in the fast lane when there is not a lot of traffic. They don't zig-zag and do all the crazy stuff that your super aggressive/aggressive drivers do. They usually hang around 10 MPH over the speed limit, and when they see a cop they slow down for the next 3 miles. They some times share traits from an aggressive driver when they are behind a slow moving vehicle and "take a chance" to get around them, but for the most part they are just trying to exercise every bit of aggressive they can get away with without jeopardizing getting a ticket.

Passive - These drivers go the speed limit, no more then 5 over. They always slow down to and stop to a red light, and never take off fast. They are happy to be in the slow lane in a multi-lane highway, and feel there is no reason to do anything "stupid" or "crazy" while they are driving. These passive drivers are usually focused on all the other cars on the road, and stay away from using cell phones, or eating behind the wheel. These drivers couldn't win a race to save their life, but they are more out for a Sunday drive than a race.

Weak - These drivers are the ones who just never caught on. While their driving may make it in small towns or large country roads, in the city they get chewed up and spit out. They stop at lights as soon as they turn yellow. They let everyone pass them and let everyone in front of them. They usually drive under the posted speed limit and usually seen with a tail of cars behind them. Others often honk horns at weak drivers when they are still stopped from a red light even after it's been green for some time now. They some times do crazy moves that can almost get them killed, like turning slowly in front of oncoming traffic. These drivers seem to be in the own little world, completely scared to do something illegal or get into an accident, but when one does occur, it's often their own fault and lack of situational awareness.

Clueless Amateur - The amateur drivers are often the new kids on the road. They have a slight aggression to their driving because for some reason they feel like they are "hot shots" now they have wheels. They often do really stupid things and are often seen in accidents. They take chances to race other "hot shots" and really focus on ego while they are driving. If alone, they might drive normal but with pressure of friends in the car, they go insane -they have to be "cool". If they see someone getting away with something, say using a short side street going the wrong way to cut around traffic, they will be turned on to try it themselves. Often these types of drivers learn their lessons the hard way, sometimes at the cost of others.

All these driver labels are ones that I am sure you can relate to. From time to time I think we seen these types of drivers in our everyday travels and maybe even pointed their actions out to others in your car; "look at that asshole speeding in between cars". Sound familiar? It should. While my "driver profiling" may not be 100% accurate, it is my own interpretation of the various drivers I see on the road. My friends claim that I am indeed an aggressive driver, but I fail to see myself anyone but a person who just wants to get where I am going. So ignorance is bliss when it comes to labeling yourself. But this blog isn't about labeling yourself at all, nor is it about labeling what type of driver you are. It's about making these types of profiles when you are playing poker. If it's this easy to profile drivers, then how can it be much difficult to use the same concept in profiling your opponents. I will not go in depth with these profiles since I am assuming you already know the classifications. The real focal point here is to understand the relationship to these classifications to the classifications of something that is everyday. Now, lets take a look at the same profiles but in terms of poker.

Super Aggressive - These players are in a lot of pots and love raising. They have no fear in throwing all their chips in the pot and never slow down even if they get caught. These players are never happy until everyone is out of their way. They are the "bullies" of a poker table, and their risk vs reward is always huge. Most players try to stay out of their way so they are not to be run over. These players can often be viewed as maniacs.

Aggressive - These players are ones that like to steal pots they are in. They try to represent hands and often buy people out of the pot. They love to play position and almost always do so with a raise. They constant apply pressure to their opponents and once in a while will attempt to make a big play borrowed from the super aggressive player's book. Aggressive players do not play as many pots as your super aggressive player, and their bets are not as big... but they still keep the action expensive while putting all their opponents to the test. They want to be first and will take risks to get there.

Selective (Tight) Aggressive - These guys play their position, usually with a raise. They like applying pressure and try to read their opponents. If they sense weakness, they make a move at a pot with a less then normal betting hand. If they sense strength they back away. They feed on the poor, and know when to attack and when not to. Selective Aggressive players will also tend to slow down once someone looks them up with a "not so strong hand" and they loose. But as soon as the player feels that his loss is out of everyone mind's, he is back attacking. This player will do anything to be first without jeapordizing himself.

Passive - These players hate the idea of raising. They like to see every flop for cheap. They love premium hands but will often loose by letting others take the lead. They rarely defend themselves and are often the players that end up blinding themselves out. These are the players who make comments like, "every time I had a good hand someone had a better hand". Usually such a comment is made after they allowed their opponent to catch runner-runner for free and now they are busted from the game. Often these players are just happy to be there, and even happier if they go deep in the tournament. The money is just an added bonus.

Weak - Weak players are the fish. They have no situational awareness and often get caught and go bust and have no idea how it happened, meanwhile the rest of the table is saying, "what was he thinking". Often these players don't play the hands or the position they should and then make moves when they shouldn't which causes them to go on a head on collision with a guy who has the nuts verses their top pair to a straight-flush drawing board.

Clueless Amateur - Different from weak, these players usually seen a couple poker games on TV and think they know how to play. They make what they feel are "professional, top player moves" but have no idea on how stupid or risky that move was. To them, it worked for that guy so it should work for me. They often play their cards with the intention to show off. These players are the ones you see raising all in preflop then show their 7-2 os to everyone with no other intentions but to brag. When they get lucky in a tournament early (usually by a suckout) they feel they are superior and usually end up donking off all their money later on the tournament as their ego gets in their way. They confide in their friends (who are even more clueless) and brag on how good they are and how much they can get away with. More often then not, these players have more "bad beat" stories then any other player. Usually these stories are exaggerated to seem more favorable for them so when they tell their friends they don't look completely stupid. These players are also too, the fish.

The above post is not to say if your an aggressive driver you will be an aggressive poker player. While this may or may not be true, the point being made is that it's often easy to label a driver on the road. The same approach can also be used for the poker table. All too often I see people not being able to label a player, especially online. If you watch a player's actions you can make the same assumptions on that person that you could if you seen them drive. Use your eyes, focus on the action, and note results. When the player raised from early position how strong was is hand? Does this player always bet on the flop but often fold to a raise? Has this guy played a hand lately? All of these questions can help you determine the profile of your opponent. It's not hard to do as long as you do not over complicate the matter.

Lets look at some other factors. Sometimes drivers change their habits. Maybe an aggressive driver received too many tickets and their next ticket will take their license away so now he is more passive. Maybe an aggressive player is starting a family and can not take the large risk anymore. Maybe the passive driver has a family emergency and is willing to be an aggressive driver for the time being as they drive to the hospital. Such changes in a driver's habits are also seen at a poker table. If a super aggressive player looses all his chips, he might start to tighten up and look for a situation to double up. At the same time, if the super aggressive player comes into a massive amount of chips he might switch to a more selective aggressive mode. The passive player might have picked up a book since the last game and feel like he might try some new moves. Reasons for a poker player to chance their way of playing can go on indefinitly. Simply people change and situations change. The point here is what you profile someone today, or even for the time being - might change. You need to keep yourself open to this and always keep re-evaluating the table.

I hope this blog was at least interesting and maybe someone learned something out of this. The point being is, when you pay attention to the road when driving you can often profile what type of driver someone is regardless of what vehicle they drive or look like. If you use the same observation skills at a poker table you can employ the same profiling on players without knowing their physical appearance or age. Just remember that people and situations change and keep an eye out for such changes. Never fall in love with your first assumption, always be willing to adjust your view on the player as time goes buy. Consider: What's different now then before?, what's his stack to everyone else?, what's the blinds?, and what happen previously to this player in a similar situation? All these questions, plus others that you can craft on your own, will help you determine the mindset of your opponent when they suddenly switch gears. Poker is a game of knowledge and the more you have the better player you will ultimately be.

Welcome Sana

2007-02-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

Hey gang. I have a ton of items I been wanting to blog about, and I will get to them hopefully over the weekend. So expect some reading material for the next few days. In the meantime, I have been really focusing on my game and have been doing good overall. I recently finished Poker Tournament Formula and currently reading Mathematics of Poker. Also I finally became a member over at PokerXFactor and looking forward to studying the material on the site. I am anticipating being able to play at a whole different level by the end of this month. I am marking February as my month of training which I hope the time spent now leads to a good year.

Now that you know that I am alive, on to the real reason of this post. Tonight Sana finally joined the blogging family. Sana has been playing poker for a while now and has a great feel for the game. He does extremely well for never reading a book or doing much studying of the game. He is definitely a player who just plays by his feel of the game. It's working good for him since he has been in the positive for the last year and change. Tonight he finally took down a MTT on WPEX. I had the privilege of gracing the final table but got knocked out short of the money when my all in shove with 7-7 got called by A-K, my fate was sealed by an Ace on the Turn. Sana on the other had not only got cards when he needed them, but ended up dominating the final 5 players. I would love to go in to detail but I much rather Sana share the experience of his first MTT win on his newly created blog site.

Great game Sana, and finally.... Welcome.

I am my own worst enemy

2007-02-06T20:25:00.000-05:00

Recently I been giving too much credit to those who don't deserve, let me explain. This month has not been a good month and we are only 6 days in. I have managed to not end one day being profitable and I blame it on my inability to realize my opponents are bad at playing poker. Yes, you read that last line correct; I can not come to the grasp that my opponents do not know how to play poker.

For instance, have you ever been in a situation were a flop comes down something like A-A-T and the first person to act bets out 1/2 the pot, you reraise with K-T and everyone folds to the original raiser - he calls. The Turn brings a 3 so the board looks like A-A-T-3. The 3 added two diamonds, but the rest of the board is a rainbow. The opponent, first to act, goes all in. Now your sitting there wondering what he might possibly have. Is he on a flush draw, does he have a T or a 3, does he have the A? You try to quick think before your 20 seconds are up and assume that any decent player would not raise, first to act, with a set - you rule out the A right away. So does he have pocket pair QQ-KK, or even TT? Maybe he has 33 and has a full house? You have all this information, yet you have to process it quickly and make a decision.

AA, Ax, TT - Unlikely that a player would bet 1/2 the pot when first to act into multiple people.
KK-QQ - The player did not raise preflop, so this is unlikely
KQ, QJ, JT, QT - Likely hands that a player might limp into with multiple people in the pot. A player might feel that he has enough outs to make an all in play now that the pot has grown rather large.
99-66 - Likely as well, limps in hoping to score a set and now has two pair and feels he is in front. The lower the pair, the more likely they would have fold to the raise on the flop.
55-22 - Most of these hands would fold with the raise on the flop.
33 - He's betting that the 3's helped him, but it's unlikely that they did because of the action on the flop
Flush - Unlikely with the betting on the flop.

Most likely hands, a huge drawing hand, a pocket pair, or a T with a weaker kicker making a move since no J, Q, or K hit the board.

You make the call and the player has A-4, you lose.

This above scenario is just that, a scenario. Sometimes you see a player make an all in bet like this on the Turn when they have a huge chip stack. When this happens you also consider things like "is he using his stack against me, hoping I fold?". I've had this happen to me so many times playing low limit games. The few times I do call these bets the opponents have a monster hand and I lose most, if not all, my chips. Plays like this become more dangerous when you are short stacked. A player bets 1/2 the pot when he is the first person to act, you raise all in which may be 2x-4x his original bet, all others fold, your feeling good, he calls and shows trip Aces, you lose.

So where did I go wrong? Most average poker players know they they can gain maximum profits from trapping players with such hands. The same situation where a player first to act checks, another person bets, and then this player either smooth calls or reraises are typical actions you see a person to do when they have a big hand. The reason most people do this is because they want to guarantee that they make maximum profit from their monster hand. When there are no danger cards, you have no reason to chase out any of your opponents. Fundamentally it all goes back to "weak means strong, strong means weak". An average player, or at least a player who knows "something" about poker, performs this action. This is where I go wrong.

My problem is that I give my opponents this credit. I give them the credit that they will act weak when strong, and strong when weak. That they will try to maximize profits off big hands and not attempt to scare off their competition. All this, I give credit to automatically... and it's cost me a lot of money. The truth is, playing in "micro limit" poker the players are not average... they're complete fish. I've found that most of the time when a player moves all in on a strong board, they have the hand. Now I am not saying every time a player moves in they have a hand. I am saying when a board has a flush, straight, or full house potential and they go all in, they usually have the hand. The fact is, these players are too weak to play "tricky" and completely lack the know-how on maximizing their hand value. These players are simply playing their cards and betting them respectfully. They are not trying to "out smart" or "out think" you, they don't even know how! And here I am, the guy who gives these players all the credit that they don't deserve, losing my money to them - the fish.

Lately, it's I have been in a lot of situations like this that has cost me my chips. My normal action has always been to fold in situations like these as long as folding still leaves me healthy on chips. Being that I have been labeled as "too tight" of a player, I have been attempting to be more aggressive, take more chances, and try new plays. All of this has done nothing more but lose tons of money in the last few weeks. My feelings on the subject? I should have stayed my tight-ass self =)

My Course of Action
I will finish the tail end of The Poker Tournament Formula, then start reading (and finish or course) Mathematics of Poker. I will also make the investment to join PokerXFactor, since I haven't found much guidance with Real Poker Training that I've hoped for. I think Todd Arnold and the gang are excellent players, but a lot of what I've seen there is what I already do. The only difference is, when they raise 4x BB in a $100 SNG, a player doesn't call them out of position with A-3 like a $20 SNG player, thus your not loosing your money with a hand like QQ when T-3-3 comes down. (I've had my Ace's cracked recently with a hand just like this). I'm not saying PokerXFactor is better then RPT, hell I have no idea because I am not a member, I am simply saying that I have watched all their videos, gained all the knowledge I think I can, and need something with more content. I must compile all this information and spend the time needed to redevelop my ability to control a table. For some reason, ever since I won those 3 WPEX tournaments I haven't done much else but watch my graph go down. There has to be a reason for it, a leak in my play, and I am out to plug it up. But first, I need to learn how to call a spade a spade, a club a club, and a weak player who only plays he hands.... a weak player who only plays his hands.

Full Tilt and MyWebATM

2007-02-04T20:24:00.000-05:00

A friend just informed me that Full Tilt sent out an e-mail informing it's players that they are now accepting deposites from U.S. customers with their new deposite system entiled "MyWebATM". Here is the contents of the e-mail:

We are pleased to announce the addition of MyWebATM, a brand new deposit option which provides a fast and easy method to fund your Full Tilt Poker account using your personal bank account.

Once you have funded your MyWebATM account through their secure Web interface, you can access your funds online at Full Tilt Poker or at thousands of stores and ATMs worldwide.

We have worked to deliver this deposit option as quickly as possible, and are confident that MyWebATM provides the convenience our players expect and deserve. Withdrawals through MyWebATM will also be fast, easy and secure, and will also be available within the next few days.

We apologize for any inconvenience you have recently experienced, and want you to know that:

* Your money is completely safe and secure - Any money you have in your Full Tilt Poker account remains completely accessible.

* We're adding even more new payment processors who are committed to the U.S. market - We are establishing relationships with a variety of companies who will offer even more convenient ways for you to deposit and withdraw funds from the site.

* Our processing speeds will return to normal - As we continue to add new payment options, all withdrawals will again be processed within our normal time frame of 48 hours or less.

Thank you for your patience and support during this time of transition, we look forward to seeing you at the table.

This should be good news for some!

Position, an important lesson

2007-02-04T17:56:00.000-05:00

In no'limit Texas Hold'em position is said to be the most important aspect of the game. When you're in position you get to see everyone's action in front of you. Position allows you to play medium-strength hands, call small raises, and make steal attempts when everyone else shows weakness. Position can also force others in folding the best hand, or reject their ability to see a free drawing cards. The reason casino's make so much money on their card games like blackjack is because they have position. It is said that in poker, if you always had position you'd never loose. Of course this is not completely true, but if spread out over a years time I think you would find that little saying true and a fact.

The reason for this entry is not to tell you what you already know, but to question you if you truly understand the importance of position. I like to consider myself an above average player. I make money over the length of the game, and I have a wide knowledge on the subject of poker that I keep trying to expand daily. I am always trying to learn what's the right move and never trying to "gamble" when I don't have the best of it. I, like almost every other player who considers themselves decent at poker, know what position is and know it's importance. The problem I had is that I never appreciated the true meaning of position until today. It cost me $33 dollars to find out, but it was money well spent.

Over my time studying and reading I have heard numerous professional poker players attempting to make a point about how important position is in NL Texas Hold'em and that they highly recommend playing a few games blind. One poker pro even mentioned that the game should be anywheres from $10-50 dollars depending on your bankroll, he further stated that playing blind in games cheaper then $10 and or "play money" games would not lead to a healthy result. The pro insisted that in such low limit games you can not buy your opponents off hands like Ace-X, or small pairs, thus playing position will not work. I've always read this and assume it to be true, but never truly respected what they were trying to tell me until I tried it today. I gathered a piece of tape and a cardboard cutout and blocked my cards while I attempting to play in a few 9 player SNGs. The best result I had was actually finishing on the bubble at a 9 player table. I could have actually finished in the money in this tournament, but I ran into a legitimate hand and lost all my chips (I was tied for second). The flop came down Q-Q-9 and after my raise (in position of course) there was over 1,000 in the pot and I had a little over 2,000 left. It was checked to me and I went all in (simply playing my opponents actions and position) and was called by A-9 OS. Apparently I made all these moves with 7-2 OS (friend was spectating) and I busted out being a huge joke to the guy who only had 800 chips left. What he failed to realize is that through the tournament I never seen one of my cards and was tied for second place, while he played all his cards with full acknowledgement of his actions and was completely short-stacked, about to get blinded out. Who has the right to laugh here?

My friend noted that I should have pulled the tape off my cards and played to win after I had such a solid chance in winning the tournament. I, however, never counted on winning this tournament and any type of money finish would have been just an added bonus. The fact is, I don't dislike my pushing all in to a Q-Q-9 flop after my opponent checks considering winning that pot would have put me in solid second. I don't agree with it 100% either, but there is some justification that could actually back this play up even if I knew what my cards were. Obviously I wouldn't have done such a play with 7-2 OS, but still... it's not as a horrible a play as it may seem.

In the end I am out $33 but I had a hell of a good time. It truly proved to me the importance of position and showed me that cards are not the most important aspect of the game (this I already knew but it solidified my knowledge on the subject). I believe that every serious poker player should try playing position completely blind a few times and donate the money if your bankroll can afford it. It truly has regain confidence in my game (if I can finish just shy of the money without looking at my cards, then I should be able to finish ITM with no problem). I will most likely play a few more SNGs tonight to see if I can not make back the money I donated; but in the end, this lesson was well worth the time and money spent. It was also one of the best times I've had playing cards. Nothing beats the rush when you push all in on the flop, completely blind, and everyone folds to you. Your sitting there grinning like a little school boy who just received their first kiss. Truly a great experience, highly recommended.

Vista makes multi-tabling easier

2007-02-03T14:54:00.000-05:00

With Microsoft's new release of Windows Vista multitudes of people, from businessmen to every day home users, have debated about upgrading to the latest operating system. If you are one of these people in the "debating" stage and play poker, then debate no longer.

The new Windows Vista features some impressive new ways to manage multiple windows that once cluttered your Start bar. Some of these new ways of managing these windows might be just eye candy to your everyday user, but as a poker player I can see many advantages for Vista's new features.

First, this is the new Windows+Tab view. When you press the appropriate keys, Vista allows you to scroll through multiple windows and stop at which ever one you want. You can even hold the Windows Key+Tab down and use your scroll button for faster selection. This can really be beneficial when you are trying to manage multiple tables on a small monitor. The best thing about this feature is that the windows update while your in windows+tab mode, allowing you to quickly scroll through your tables and look for the one that's prompting you to act.

The second new addition to Vista is built off Windows' previous versions of PowerToys. When you press Alt+Tab a new Tab Window appears giving you little icons of which windows you have available. As with the previous feature, these icons update, which again helps you find the table prompting for your action. I find this feature a great benefit when I am playing 3-4 rooms on a small monitor. I can easily switch rooms with no hassle, and keep an eye out on all of them at once.

The third, and final, benefit to Vista's new multi-window management is the ability to just simply mouse over a window icon on your start bar for a snapshot of it's contents. As before, these snapshots stay updated. I find this feature useful when I am in a large tournament and sort of in "premium hands only" mode while playing a SNG. I will have the SNG on my screen and keep my mouse over the MTT's icon (watching for my turn to act). This allows me to better focus on my SNG as I wait for premium hands on my MTT.

I believe with enough practice these added features of Vista can really help a poker player with managing multiple windows at once. I've definitely have grown fond of all these features and will continue to use them as time goes on.

Sportsbook.com

2007-02-03T08:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I received a letter from Sportsbook.com that was very appealing. Here is some of the key points of the letter:

Remember playing in Paradise Poker? Remember those Frequent Player Points you were piling up? Boy, do we have a poker offer that'll interest you...

Greetings,

It was never any fun getting kicked out of Paradise, but at least we can now reveal a plan to get a serious poker product back on the desktops of American players - and put cash in your hands to try it risk free.

Since Paradise pulled out of the US, their parent company also had to sell off their crown jewel: Sportsbook.com. Now backed as a private venture, Sportsbook.com continues to service and satify players for both sports betting and casino entertainment.

And now Sportsbook.com has launched a new poker platform.

Our players are serious about poker as they are about sports. In the few weeks we've had the beta version up, literally thousands of people have come to compete in our first $100,000 freeroll and daily cash freerolls.

With cash games and tournaments now available, we figured it was time to invite you to join in. So we're sending you this software and this sixteen digit number that will unlock anywhere from $10.00 to $100.00 in free cash for you to try poker at Sportsbook.com

The rest of the letter goes on to market their company and software. Being a previous Paradise Poker fan I decided to check them out. Their software doesn't resemble Paradise in anyway, and with it's limited customization options you can tell it just came out of beta. What's good about the site is that the cards are easy to read, and so is every one's chip counts. While I haven't played a game on the site yet, merely spectated, I am definitely going to give their software a try. My sixteen digit code gave me $20 of free staring money, so we will see how far that will take me.

So with all this in mind I decided to look into Sportsbook.com a little more. For money transactions they use a company called EFS (Electronic Financial Services International Inc.) EFS has been in business since 1995 but doesn't seem to have an official website. EFS' site seems to go to http://www.worldgaming.com/ which only list a contact number for questions. I am assuming that this may be in light of what happen to Neteller. Maybe a way for them to protect their business and their people?

But the real question is, do they accept US transactions. I took it upon myself to find out the answer:

Sportsbook: How may I help you today?

Me: I recently received a letter from sportsbook.com inviting me to participate in their new poker room. The letter makes it appear that your company is allowing US customers. Is this true? Can US customers transfer & receive funds from your company?

Sportsbook: Yes we do indeed accept US customers

Sportsbook: We are open for business! As you know, we've made a habit of looking after our customers, and we don't intend to stop now! The management team who have lovingly built the site remain in place. We have always made it our aim to provide top-quality service from our experienced and professional team of people, and we're going to continue to do so. We thank you for your continued loyalty and support during these changing times.
All your transactions remain secure, your details completely confidential. Your account is safe with us.

Me: So just to verify, we can safely deposit and withdraw from your site?

Sportsbook: Yes indeed

This is actually pretty enlighten news considering the recent actions of Neteller. In the next few days I will attempt to test out their new software and make a deposit if I like their room. Overall I think this is good news for some poker players who might have gone bust over the last few weeks and haven't had a way to replenish their accounts. Right now, this is the only site that I know of that we can deposit funds into, and withdraw without a hassle (or so they claim). As I find out more information I will keep you all informed.

January is in the books

2007-01-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

Due to my recent lack of ability to finish in anything worth wild in the last week, I am closing the month of January and taking a few days off from playing poker. This month was a good month, only suffering in the end... here is the break down:

Tournament Count: 73
Total Buy-Ins: $829
Total Payouts: $1,453
Total Won/Lost: $624
Average Won/Lost: $9

From January 22nd to the 28th I donked $117 or about $20 a day. Seems ever since I placed the third time in a row in the WPEX Guarantee tournament, I've been getting cold decks from WPEX and FTP. Overall, it hasn't been a bad month and I feel like I need some time off before going into February. I might jump in the Mookie this week, but that will most likely be it.

Since it's the end of the month, I wanted to revisit my New Years Resolutions I made in the beginning of the month. I feel this is the only way to be honest with myself if I am ever going to achieve my goals.

Sharpen my ability to read opponents by focusing on everyday observation.

I've been working on trying to remember things that I normally wouldn't remember. I also have been taking regular doses of Ginkgo Biloba hoping that this will help sharpen the mind. I haven't noticed too many benefits yet, but I will keep working on it.

Play more live games at casinos.

Only played there once this month. I been talking with some of the SJPC guys and we are thinking about a bi-weekly trip to A.C. as a group. If this comes through, then I will be able to complete this resolution without problems. If not, then it's going to take my own will power to make that long drive to A.C. more often.

Become more physically fit.

Well, less than 30 days and I have lost 10 pounds and have noticed good results in a boost of stamina. My whole point in this was to be able to stay more sharp when playing long games. I haven't noticed too much benefits yet while playing cards, but personally I feel better when I wake up and I have more energy as the day gets later. My only fault is in the last few days I've been slacking on my daily exercise.

Move into $40-50 regular sit and goes online.

I actually seemed to moved down rather then go up. Maybe this is the reason for my last few days of being sucked out on and loosing money. My original idea was to transfer a bunch of funds to one site and then play in their higher limit games. Since Neteller stopped transferring its made this plan sort of difficult to do. So instead, I've been trying to grind out $10-$20 SNGs to build up enough of a roll to play in the higher SNGs.

Regularly finish ITM in 45-90 SNGs.

I placed consistent for a few days in the larger games but haven't done much since. I'd like to finish a lot more as time goes by. This is really a goal that should be revisited in March or April.

Take down a big game.

No multi-thousand dollar win yet, but I have attempted to play in them. We will see how next month goes.

Play at a low limit, short handed World Series NL Hold'em side game.

Again, another goal sort of ruined by Neteller. The idea was to build up enough money in online winnings to play in the WSOP low buy-in even for "free". While I feel I am on a good track, Neteller no longer transferring funds will make this difficult. I need to get involved with more live games.

Play and win Sats.

Haven't done this at all and I really should. The few times I did play Sats, in December, it seemed like the players were complete idiots. I got drawn out on a few times and it left a bad taste in my mouth. But I know I am solid enough to win a few of these and even turn them into cash when playing in the tournament. The only way I am ever going to play in Sats is to schedule something. Next month I will play in 5 Sats. This may seem small, but as I meet my goal I will higher it up from month to month (pending my results). I need to start somewhere on this one.

Well it's going to be different not playing poker for the next few days, but I will keep myself busy I'm sure. I still have lots of things I want to do even though I have completed everything on my "to-do" list that I spoke about last blog.

For everyone who reads my blog: Cheers, I hope you had a great month as well.

Goals for February

Play in 5 Sats
Read Mathematics of Poker
Post more poker strategy talk and hand analyst on the blog
Take down 4 Guarantee tournaments on WPEX
Final Table a Mookie on FTP
Get back on track with my exercise
Build more confidence in my game
Visit A.C. at least twice

New Keyboard and a Plan

2007-01-26T08:31:00.000-05:00

Well I did it, I finally broke down and purchased a new wireless keyboard and mouse. How does this relate to poker? Well I will not be folding pocket Kings anymore that's for sure! I also got some of my "to-do" list done (as mentioned in previous blog). Tonight I am going to finish a few more things on the list and the rest this weekend. I have my days planned out for doing what on what day. By Sunday night, I'll be all caught up and I feel really good about it. Now that I have a plan of action, I might jump into a few games tonight. Nothing overly serious, just some action to keep warm. It felt weird not playing poker last night and I don't know if I could go another night like that. As long as I get done what's on my to-do list for today, I am going to play tonight. I'll probably start out with some SNG's and work up some cash, then invest the winnings into some sort of guarantee tournament. Most likely I will play on WPEX since I've been running good there recently. This weekend I'd like to work in some FTP tables, I ran 'Super Hot' (Sharkscope) there for a long time and still feel that I can rekindle that flame.

With a course of action I feel much better about myself and hoping this trickles down to the poker table. Maybe now I can focus on what my opponent is doing and not what I need to do at home. Today I feel great, nothing can stop me. I got up an extra hour early all on my own and been feeling pumped up ever since I made breakfast. Tonight it's on... I just hope work doesn't kill my buzz.

Procrastination, Broken Keyboards, and the Mookie

2007-01-25T08:08:00.000-05:00

First, any blog that starts with a picture of a donkey is never good. Last night was the most horrible night of poker I think I've ever played. I wasn't focused at all, totally lost in my surroundings. It was like I was at Burger King asking for a Big Mac... just wasn't happening!

Let me explain, so I can attempt to save face - ah what the hell... so I can come up with excuses! The last few days I've been playing like I just picked up a deck of cards and learned how to deal Hold'em correctly. I've made tons of amature mistakes and have been playing like a complete fish. Bankroll wise, I haven't moved much in either direction - positive or negative... but I know I missed tons of opportunities to be way in the positive. My problem? It's my own fault. No bad beats, no bad players calling and catching, just me... I'm my problem, and let me explain why.

Ever since I won the last WPEX Guarantee Tournament I promised myself I would catch up on some needed things. I have a lot of work to do at work, and I have been putting in some longer hours to keep caught up. With that, things at home have been put on hold. I have some side work I just been procrastinating on, my house is looking worse and worse, and I got other little personal things I need to take care of. But instead of taking care of things at home, I been sitting at poker tables and playing Hold'em.

How does all that translate to my donkey style play? I am just not focus. When I am playing, I am thinking of all the stuff I need to do at home and not thinking about the action in front of me. When a guy check raises me, or bets a large amount on the Flop, I have no idea what he is doing. Not because he's a crafty player, but because I can't remember what he showed down the last time he did that. I can't remember who's on tilt, who's been getting cards lately... hell man, I can't remember a damn thing. I'm better off playing in the dark! To top it all off, I have a wireless keyboard and mouse I bought at CompUSA that's absolutely terrible. Half the time it's completely non-responsive and I miss a lot of opportunities to raise when I want to, or call bets when I want to. Hell, I timed out trying to raise K-K pre-flop in position with 5 limper's. Right then I should have replaced my wireless set up, but I didn't... it's on my "list of things to do" lol.

So how do I know I am officially insane? How about last night in the Mookie I folded Q-Q when the flop came down A-small-small. Player first to act bets, I call. A on the turn, and he fires again and hard. I call. K on the river, he fires and I fold. What I really wanted to do was raise on the Turn, but I didn't... because I suck.

Then I did the play that I hate the most. I actually was up til about 1AM pissed at myself for doing this. It's the move I'd disown a friend for, and I did it. I went all in UTG with A-J suited. WHAT THE HELL was I thinking? Gee.... Ride my donkey baby! Of course Big Slick calls me, what was he thinking? I Flopped an inside straight draw and missed the Turn and the River... bye bye me.

Well, I am gonna stop playing poker and get things DONE here. As far as the next Mookie is concerned, I'll make my $10 contribution!

Another One Bites the Dust...

2007-01-22T21:39:00.000-05:00

Dinner and poker... that's what I did tonight and everything came out all right. Now, I am not one to be stuffing my mouth when playing poker. Even at home games when everyone orders pizza, I am sitting there with my glass of water concentrating on what's before me. A pro once said, "Championships are won on starvation", and I believe this to be true. I forget where I read it, but there was a scientific study that proved eating while doing any sort of mind game (like poker) will affect your judgment and you will not play optimally. So what does all this mean? Well, besides the fact that scientist have way too much time on their hands to figure this stuff out, I went against them (and myself) and played some poker while eating a nice meal... that I cooked in between hands. The results? They say pictures say a thousand words, so here ya go...

The game was pretty average for me early on, keeping myself slightly ahead of the average chip stack and waiting for blinds to go up so I could play "poker". I was able to build up a rather healthy chip stack when the blind reached 100 / 200 then lost a bunch of chips when I called a guy's all in and lost. Later in the game we were down to 11 players left and my table was short handed. I had 11,000 in chips, and the next in like had 26,000. I ended up shoving my chips in on the button with Kd Td and was called by the BB with Ah Kh. The Flop gave hope, X X T, but a A on the Turn made me drop my fork. As I settled with the thought I was placing 11th, a miracle T hit the river and I doubled up. Two hands later I took him out and we went to the final table. (Sorry guy...)

Entering the final table I was 2nd in command and ended up the table captain in 4 hands. I was in the BB and it folded around to the chip leader in the SB. He made a huge raise and I had QQ, I reraised all in, facing the bubble.... and he let go. He didn't attempt to steal my blinds for a long time after, so this play not only gained me chips up front, but saved money for future rounds. Few hands later I took out a player and the bubble position was over. After that, I just kept myself under control. I called all in bets based on pot odds and what my remaining stack would be. I ended up doubling up a total of 3 players, but I knocked out just as many. When we got into 3-way action I had a dominating chip lead over the other two opponents. They sat around 15k each, and I with around 40k. The players just folded to me every hand, no one wanted to play with me. I just kept stealing and they ended up knocking each other out. When I went into heads up I have over 60k in chips and my opponent was crippled. He ended up doubling up through me once, but finally I took him down a few hands later.

Over all I am happy with the win. I did get lucky not to finish 11th, but I'll take it. I made the correct move and it paid off, even though I sucked out for it to happen. My only regret on taking this down is WPX hand histories make it nearly impossible for me to go back and retrieve key moments in the tournament. I guess need to start taking games down on FTP again. Maybe I'll play in this week's Mookie.....

SJPC, AC, & WPEX $500 Guarantee

2007-01-21T19:41:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy weekend, with some roller coaster results. First, I headed down to South Jersey for a SJPC game. We had some old school players in the game, some guys I haven't seen in a long time. I ended up playing only a few hands but got maximum results each time, which placed me as the chip leader. Then I made two key decisions which really helped me; I called a guy's bluff with pocket 7's and they held up, and I folded pocket pair against two small stack all-ins when I guess correctly what type of cards they had - I would have been ahead but the one small stack spiked an Ace and took it down. I ended up going heads up as a massive chip leader and it was over in 4 hands. GG me.

The next day I headed to AC and sat down at the Showboat. Now before people think I am a complete donk, let me just well inform you that I am not a ring game player - I am a tournament player. I ended up dropping $120 in a 1/2 NL table. These guys were crazy, average preflop raises were around $30, and people were calling with hands like 5-3 OS. I lost most of my roll when I had top two pair, Aces and Kings and lost to trips. From then on in I really played bad and made a lot of horrible decisions. Now I look back on it, the $120 I wasted in a type of game I have no real skill in, I should have played the 100+20 Freezeout. Ah well, it was fun time with some of the SJPC guys... so the way I look at it, $200 night out with the guys (food and stuff included).

So feeling sort of upset with; A) Playing a ring game when my strength is ten-fold in tournament play, and B) loosing that money to complete crazy people - I decided to do a little online action. I jumped in WPX and finished in a couple SNGs, then took down a SNG on FTP (which I've been on a down slope recently at that site). I traveled back up to my place and played in the WPEX $500 Guarantee. I finished 3rd there which was completely my fault. I was low stack and in the BB. SB calls and the flop comes down. He checks and I make a move... he had a hand. So dumb play by me, but I needed that pot to stay alive. It was a situation play more then anything (odds of him hitting the flop is rare). The "damn-it" play of the game which could have made all the difference is if I would have called the two small stack all-ins with my pair of sevens. Small stack with about 3,000 moves all in, stack of 9,000 moves all in, and I am sitting with 15k and fold. The flop would have gave me quads and I would have been extremely healthy, eliminating two players in the mean time. Ah well, I just didn't want to bust out and be in the "all in" mode myself. Any way, played another SNG on WPX and got second. Kat moved all in every hand during heads up. I think we seen two flops out of 20 hands. I picked a spot and called. Flopped top pair and he got river-river diamonds to flush up and win. I'm not mad I lost this way either, I know I will take his money another time. To me, people who go all in all the time read Kill Phil and take it way too seriously. I just think he was scared to play me after the cards came down. Every hand I was in with him before the heads up I won... so what you think?

In the end, I made some good money this weekend and I am happy with my results. I hope everyone else had a good weekend. Cheers!

1st in WPEX $1,000 Guarantee

2007-01-18T18:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I jumped into a $10 Freezeout on WPEX, feeling good about my play there. I've been taking down a lot of SNG's there and felt that it's been easy money so far, so why not try a tournament?

The first hand in the tournament I took down with a minimal profit when I flopped two pair. With two suited cards I bet out a tad bit more than 1/2 the pot and everyone folded to me. After that I was strictly in post-and-fold mode up until I doubled up with pocket Aces. From then on I played my position (stole chips from small stacks and kept constant pressure on everyone). I switched from being extremely tight to little "stealing rushes", trying to keep my game mixed up. I tried to develop an image that I was a tight player who just got card rushes from time to time, I think it worked well. Throughout the tournament I was able to maintain a stack in the top 5. When the action become the final 3 tables, I moved into the tournament chip leader with more than 16,000 chips.

I ended up doubling up a guy twice in a row which crippled my stack to a mere 6,000 chips. Keeping the faith, and taking advantage of the increasing blinds, I was able to get chipped up to over 20,000 in about a half hour's time. At this point I was at 23k and the average stack was 18k facing 1500 / 3000 blinds. All I had to do was be patient, steal in position, and keep building a stack. At one point I stole every time in one whole rotation, this really helped me build a decent stack up. Bold move by some, but it created action later when people went from the fear of being busted out and folding every hand hoping to skip into the money to panic mode that they will be blinded out soon and miss the money.

As the final two tables came together I kept a strong eye on how many people were left. Only the top 9 finished in the money, and as the field dropped to 15 my table become extremely tight. I was able to steal in any position as long as I was the opener - I took a huge advantage of this and stole my heart out. While everyone was folding, I was collecting. If I got challenged and didn't have a hand, I'd just get out of the way. Taking in so many steals it didn't matter that I was letting go one in every 7 or 8 steal attempts. My friend specing said I had "total control of the table", and I felt it. Even the big stack (leader of the tournament) was folding his SB to me when I was in the BB - they all feared to be busted out by me. I guess it helped that I also took 3 people out on my table. Once with pocket 4s, then with pocket Kings, and lastly with AQ suited. Being feared is awesome.

Finally the final table arrived, and the blinds were getting super high. I kept applying pressure when I was in position - but now the big stack woke up and was stealing more aggressively then me. Here are some screen shots of various key hands on the final table.

Big stack pushed all in and I called with pocket Kings. My Kings hold up hitting a full house on the River. This placed me second in chips.

Getting great odds, I called the Button's all in with K-9. It held up and I send him to the rail.

Small blind puts in a little more then a one-up raise. I call and flop a huge hand. He checks and I check behind him. The Turn lands me trips, but pairs the board. He shoves and I insta-called. The River counterfeited my trips and gave me the Straight for a win.

Shortly after the SB makes a move again. I have enough odds and chips to make the call. My Brunson holds up and we go into heads up.

Unfortunately I was extremely focused on my heads up play I didn't take any screen shots.
I kept the chip lead for most of the action until this hand happen:

Blinds 4000 / 8000 +ante Hero: 98680 (BB)

Villain: 49820 (SB) Dealt: Ac Jc

Villain calls 4000, Hero raises to 25000, Villain re-raises to 49420 and is all in, Hero calls

Villain shows J-T
Hero reveals A-J

The Showdown: Kc As 3d, Ad, Qs
Villain wins 99640 with a Broadway Straight Hero has 48860 left

This was a devastation. The Turn looked great for me and I was really hoping I'd dodge that Q. On the next 4 hands, our villain moved all-in preflop hoping for me to give up and call. Finally I did with J-J and stood good against his T-T. This evened the field and I did some bold all-in moves preflop 2-3 times in a row to smack him from doing it to me. A few hands later we got down to the last hand of the tournament.

Blinds 4000 / 8000 +ante Hero: 113840 (SB) Villain: 34660 (BB) Dealt: 8c Td (hey man, any hand can win in heads up)

Hero calls, Villain checks

With the Villain checking preflop I can not put him on high cards or a pair. I believe that if he had an Ace or a King he'd raise me. High Ace, King or Pockets he'd go all in. This assumption is from watching my player's habits throughout this final table and heads up play.

Flop: Ac 5d 7s
Villain checks, Hero checks

The Villain didn't take a chance to bet here, which to me means he was afraid of that Ace. I check behind him with full intentions of betting out on the Turn. My thought; he might min bet since I checked and I can raise him all in. Hopefully he folds and I can cripple him (he's a weak player and doesn't look at odds). If he checks, a 1/2 pot size bet would indicate to him that I was trapping with an Ace and he would fold. Either way I have confidence that my opponent is weak enough to fold in my attempts to steal this pot.

Turn: 8h [Ac 5d 7s]
Villain checks, Hero bets 12000, Villain re-raises to 26260 and is all in, Hero calls 14260.

Villain checks and I place my bet. This time I hit my card so I feel confident that I still have the best hand. Before I placed my bet I predetermined that I would call his all in if he decided to come over the top. He does, and I stick with my gut feeling that I have the best hand and make the call.

Villain shows K-J (Tried to slow play and got caught)
Hero reveals 8-T (Pair of Eights)

Showdown: 9c [8h Ac 5d 7s] Hero wins with Eights, Ten Kicker.

My opponent made a huge mistake in attempts to slow play his K-J and ended up loosing the whole tournament on a bluff. What he failed to realize, his all in gave me tremendous odds to call him. Had he would have pushed on the preflop or even the flop, I would have folded my hand. I hit the board, then being offered almost 4:1 on my money, there was no way I was folding. If he had the Ace then so be it, I wasn't folding. To his credit, I think he put me on a bluff and figured his King-high would be good. I was raising and playing so many hands, keep mixing my play, he didn't have a good read on me. If this is the case, my "in control, maniac play" paid off.

Overall I am very happy with my performance in this tournament. I did make a few mistakes during the tournament that cost me chips, but with patience and putting all my knowledge to use I was able to pull myself out of my loss and place myself right back in contentions. Eventually I will review this tournament's hand histories, and if I notice any plays worth discussing I will post them. WPEX makes reviewing hand histories a pain in the ass, so this might take some time.

In the end, while this tournament is not a major win as far as some of the blog sites I read post about, it's still a significant win for me - someone who has been on a bad beat streak for the last few days. Turning $10 into $300 definitely boosts your confidence. I plan to continue some action at WPEX, since their SNGs are really good. Hopefully my luck will change on FTP and I can go back to the site I truly like, until then I will stay with the money - WPEX.

Neteller Says Good Bye U.S. Poker Players

2007-01-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

Found this information on Lucko21's blog.

Effective ImmediatelyDue to recent US legislative changes and events, effective immediately, US members are no longer able to transfer funds to or from any online gambling sites.All US members will continue to be able to use their NETELLER e-wallet account to safely transfer funds to and from non-gambling merchants and are not required to close their account or withdraw their funds.Please note that we are experiencing higher than normal support volumes and recommend that you read the FAQs for more information.

Why is NETELLER no longer allowing US members to make fund transfers with online gambling sites?

The US government has recently introduced new legislation in the form of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. To best protect the interests of NETELLER members, employees, shareholders and business partners, NETELLER will no longer provide service to US members to transfer funds to and from online gambling merchants. Read the press release.

Official posting from Neteller
News from PokerNews

This started when the founders of Neteller were arrested in the U.S. a couple days ago.

This becomes very problematic for poker players. It's not bad if you some bankrolls already built up on your favorite poker site, but it does become a problem when you want to withdraw or try a different room. Hopefully with all the intelligent people in this world, someone will figure out another way to deposite and withdraw. Or maybe, someone with enough pull can remove this bill, or get poker excluded.... wouldn't that be nice?

Review: Harrington on Hold'em Vol III: The Workbook

2007-01-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

Each month I will take some time to talk about a poker related products and voice my opinion about it, for the good or for the bad. In this review I would like to talk about Harrington on Hold'em, Volume 3: The Workbook.

Harrington on Hold'em Volume 3, known as 'HoH3' through out the rest of this review, is written by none other than Dan Harrington himself along with Bill Robertie and is published by Two-Plus-Two Publishing. This is the third of his three volume set and focuses on the following main topics:

Evaluating Your Play
Playing After the Flop
Playing The Bubble

When you first look at HOH3 you will assume that the book is not very much different than it's predecessors, you'd be terribly wrong. HOH3 breaks from his typical design of "Lesson" then "Practice" and puts you right into the thick of the problem. Take HOH3 as a test of your knowledge. Imagine, if you will, that HOH1 & 2 was the class and HOH3 is the test.

HOH3 features 50 real life hands that were played by some of the very best players in the world. In these hands you ride shotgun with a selected pro and are presented with a multiple list of choices of actions you can make before every action the professional player actually made. Each hand, or situation, is presented with information that might be important in making the correct multiple choice answer (if a player has been loose, betting patterns known, your image at the table, etc.). Record all your answers and compare them with what the pro actually did - then read Harrington's comments on the play! Believe it or not, Harrington doesn't always take sides on what the pro did, and some hands are introduced in this book that were played completely wrong but Harrington wants to test you to ensure that you would have made the right play and not just marking off every move that the pro did (cheater!).

Answering the problem correctly gains you points. The tougher the answer, the greater the points. In the end you can tally up your points and compare them to his chart, almost like a grade.

200 points or less, you're a beginning player
200 or more, you need a lot of work in many key areas
300 or more, you have a solid base of skills to build upon
400 or more, you're a very good player who should show profits in big tournaments
500 or more, you're a world class player

The maximum one can earn is 591 points. But the point system is not all that's valuable in this book. Marking off which questions you did not score the maximum amount of points can be matched to another chart to inform you where you need to focus to strengthen your game. Whether it's your preflop action, betting for value, or the dozen or so other area's of focus, Harrington will hopefully guide you into the right direction on what part of your game you need to focus on.

This book should be apart of every true poker player's line up. It's not only a very insightful book, but a book that literary challenges your skills and abilities - and rates them. I did find myself time to time arguing with what Harrington would claim as the best answer to a particular problem, but then I guess that's why he is the Pro and I am not. The point is, this book gets you thinking and puts your plays, moves, calls, or whatever you want to call them, to the test. I recommend if you haven't already read HOH 1 & 2, to take the test first. Do not read Harrington's solutions to the problem since that will spoil the correct answer. Then read his previous two books and take the test again. Score both of them and see how much you gained from his previous books. I believe that you will be impressed with the results and feel that this book was well worth it's $29.95 price tag.

My verdict: Buy it

Oh, and my score was a 416. Good luck!

Taking a Break

2007-01-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

Well today started good. I made up all the money I lost minus $10. Figured I'd jump in a small SNG and win the money back (plus a little more) then call it a night.

In the first SNG I played in I had a complete donk at my table who just seemed to be hitting all his cards and no one catching a break. I lost a lot of money, most of my stack, when I bet 4x BB with K-K, and he called. Flop came down Q-J-9 rainbow. He checks, I bet 3/4 the pot and he calls. The Turn is an A and he pushes all-in. I fold and he shows A-5 OS. Few hands later I jam QQ and he calls with K-T suited. Before he made the call he announced he had a really good hand.

So I figured, "Ok, he's a donk and cards just went with him." I pulled up his profile on SharkScope and he is a break-even player at best. So all is well, I'll join another SNG.

In the second SNG on the road to win back my cash I lost half my stack when this happen:
UTG+1 limps, I am on the Button with K-J OS and make it 3 bets to go. SB folds, BB calls, Limper calls. Flop comes: 8s 3d 8d. Both players auto-check so I make a continuation bet about 3/4 the pot. SB folds, Limper calls. Turn comes 6h. Limper pushes all in and I reluctantly fold. I say reluctantly because I believe he was on a stone cold bluff but I haven't the cards to call him. I get card dead and the few times I try to steal someone comes over the top on me. With the blinds coming fast, I push UTG+1, first in with A-T. The same guy who took half my chips auto-calls with A-Q OS. I get no help and loose again.

So I think about it. I really feel that I play way above my level at these SNG. Prior to this weekend, out of 25 games I lost 3. That's an amazing record that got destroyed this weekend. So I figured I'll step up to the $30 game. I took down my first ever there and in my second game I lost to a BS call posted in the previous blog.

Well same old goes with the $30 table. Every time I entered a pot with a raise someone would push all-in on the flop. I wish I could talk with someone who really makes good profit from these games to figure out how they make decisions when people abuse the all-in factor. Because when I call I get sucked out on:

I raised 3x BB with A-Q on the button with one UTG limper. The Limper calls my raise with J- 7 suited. He checks the flop and I slightly over-bet the pot to chase draws away. He shoves immediately. I think about what he might be doing:

1. Came in with A-Q himself and figures he has the best had as well
2. Came in with pocket pair, Tens or better and wants to end this hand now
3. Has A-A or K-K and doesn't want to get a flush beat
4. On a Bluff, figures my over-bed missed the board
5. On a Semi Bluff (Draw, K-Q, Q-J)

Then I think back, it's early in the game and he's shoved his chips in two other times with no one contesting him. He might feel that he has an edge on the table and can bully people around. Before I make the call I notice I have 670 chips left and it's a pot of 1710. If I fold I leave myself semi-crippled. If I win I am 2nd in chips with good feeling I could win this SNG. Getting 2.5 on my money, I make the call with TPTK and the Turn gives him the flush with no help for me.

I lost a good chunk of change in the matter of an hour or so. I knew I should have never went on break when I was winning, but I wanted to enjoy some lunch and review my play.

So after battling to gain my losses I am slightly up for the day, but down for the weekend thanks to some more bad beats and bad calls from my opponents. I am officially taking a break. I will spend this time researching, ordering MOP (Mathematics of Poker) and reading that book, and maybe playing some live games. I tend to run much better live then online. I am even considering some AC play next weekend which I haven't done in a while (lazy to drive). I have a VIP card at the Hilton and met a guy recently who regulars there. Might see about running into him at the 1-2 NL tables. While on break I am going to invest on a notebook and start reviewing all my hand histories. I am going to write down all the times I lost a significant amount of chips and look for patterns. I feel this is the best way to really figure out what I am doing wrong.

No offense to my friends, your all good players, but I really wish I could talk with someone who is a "GREAT" player so I can find out what I am doing wrong... or am I just on a bad roll of luck this weekend. There is so much about the game I want to discuss but no one I can talk with who truly understands the game beyond my level. <- This is were I hope MOP helps.

In the mean time, I have some poker items I will review to keep this blog active as I break. I will also post some findings if I do find glitches in my play, and my results in AC if I go. Cheers all and I hope you have better luck than I have been getting.

Bad Beats

2007-01-13T19:49:00.000-05:00

I find this ironic this blog entitled "Bad Beats" is directly after my previous blog entitled "Suckouts". The last few days have been incredible. My RIO for my regular SNG is +80% for the last two months, and I have even attempted to move up a level and took down my first game there. But today, which started out as a decent day, has turned into a nightmare. Let's recap the day:

Bad Beat 1

Started my day out at a 45 player SNG. A few hands in and I am up to 1740 chips. Nothing to brag about but it's a good start. Then this terrible hand happens and ends my tournament:

Blinds 20 / 40
Starting pot is 60

Seat 1: 1425
Seat 2: 1140
Seat 3: 1700 (Hero)
Seat 5: 1155
Seat 6: 1275 (Button)
Seat 7: 1900 (SB)
Seat 8: 3000 (BB)
Seat 9: 1845 (Villain)

Dealt 9d 8d

UTG (Villain) calls, Seat 1-2 fold, Hero limps, Cutoff & Dealer limp, SB folds, BB Checks
Pot is now 220

Flop: 9s Ac 8h
BB checks, Villain bets 240, Hero calls, remaining players fold.

Heads up action, Hero vs Villain
Pot is now 700

Turn: 3d [9s Ac 8h]
Villain bets 360, Hero raises to 720, Villain calls
Pot is now 2140

River: Jh [3d 9s Ac 8h]
Villain bets 845 and is all in, Hero calls

Hero shows two pair; Nines and Eights, Ace-Kicker
Villain shows two pair; Aces and Jacks, Nine-Kicker

Comments: I knew I had the best hand up until the River card but he wouldn't get off his pair of Aces. When the Jack came down I said out loud he had Aces and Jacks but the pot was too good to fold. 740 to win 2880 was almost 4:1 on my money with two pair. I lost the hand, but really didn't feel bad about it since "that's poker".

====================

Bad Beat 2

I placed second in this SNG, so it was a money finish. The final hand was another suckout.

Blinds 50 / 100

Villain: 7140 (Button)
Hero: 1710

Villain calls 50, Hero raised to 300, Villain calls
Pot is now 600

Flop: Jd 3h Tc
Hero bets 400, Villain calls
Pot is now 1400

Turn: Ah [Jd 3h Tc]
Hero bets 500, Villain calls
Pot is now 2400

River Qh [Ah Jd 3h Tc]
Hero checks, Villain bets 610, Hero calls 610 and is all in

Hero shows two pair; Aces and Threes, Queen kicker
Villain shows Broadway Straight, Then through Ace

Comments: I should have shoved on the Turn and I paid for my mistake. Nothing I could do about the outcome. If I folded the hand on the River I was all in the next couple hands regardless. Ah well...

====================

Bad Beat 3

I've been hearing so much about Satalites from so many magazines and professional players I decided to give one a try. I was doing good until my two pair ran into Quads and I lost a good portion of my stack. Then I jammed K-6 OS with first in and was called by 6-3 OS. The board sent 6-3 OS the chips.

====================

Bad Beat 4

Nothing much here, pushed with T-T Pre-Flop and A-J OS called me. Ace on the Turn sealed my fate. Amazes me that people would call such a large push with A-J OS at the $30 level.

====================

Bad Beat 5

Blinds 50 / 100
Down to bubble position

Hero on the Button: 1275
SB: 3745
BB: 3980

Dealt Ks Jd

Hero opens for 300, SB calls, BB Calls
Pot is now 900

Flop: Jh 7h Ac
SB: Checks, BB Checks, Hero moves all-in for 975, SB calls, BB folds

Hero reveals K-J OS
Villain reveals K-T OS

The Showdown: 9c Qs [Jh 7h Ac]

Villain makes a Broadway to win the pot.

Comments: I am speechless. How can he call that with an inside straight draw? If he flipped over an Ace then it would simply be GG me... but a draw? Come on!

====================

Bad Beat 6

This beat occurred when the blinds were 40 / 80 and I was low stack after loosing more than half my stack to a River beat. I get dealt A-J suited on the SB and had 740 chips after posting. Figured this would be a good time to push since someone might think I am on tilt and call with a lesser hand.

I shove and A-T suited calls. Great! He's an underdog to my Ace, I just need to dodge a straight and a T and I should double up...

====================

I did have some wins today, it wasn't all bad. Overall I am down but it happens. I just can't believe some of these calls from underdogs and hitting their cards hard. I pulled my games and I seem to have a tougher time beating SNGs on the weekends than I do any other day of the week. Early on the weekends is not bad. So I am coming to a conclusion that there are too many "gamblers" on the weekend who just don't care about what your trying to represent. As long as they have an Ace, they will call you down.

Well, I just hope my next session brings this back into the positive. If I get up early tomorrow I will play a few rounds, otherwise I will spend the day reviewing hand histories.

Good luck to everyone else out there, may your good starting hands hold up!

Suckouts

2007-01-11T18:29:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has played more than one game of poker learns to hate suckouts. We hate it when we have the best hand, get all our chips are in the pot, and get sucked out on the Turn or the River. It's enough to put even the best players on tilt.

One method to counteract going on tilt when you loose a ton of chips on a suckout is to remember the times when you were the one raking in the pot as an underdog. Poker Pros say you can hardly remember all your great wins but you can remember in detail all your losses. To help me remember the times I got lucky and suckedout, I started saving screenshots of them when I played online. I review them frequently enough to present a constant reminder that I too was an underdog at one point and won a pot when I shouldn't have. It's self discipline for keeping off tilt when I get sucked out on. Here are some screenshots that I saved.

Suckout 1, KK vs. Trips

Dealt Cowboys and raised pre-flop. The BB call and the flop is T-8-6 rainbow. The BB goes all in and I call with my KK vs his Trip T's. The Turn was a 6 giving him a full house and leaving me with two outs. The K on the river sent the BB to his 'reload' screen.
=====================

Suckout 2, 7-2 vs. A-T

Even the worse hand in poker pays off sometimes. In this hand a super-aggressive player raises on the button and I call with the intention of standing up for my blind and stealing this pot away from him (I have a super-tight image at this point). The flop comes down 4-7-A and he over bets the pot. My read was that he was afraid of the flush draw, so I shoved all-in. He calls and my dead chips get returned. He flips over top pair and the Turn makes my day.
=====================

Suckout 3, K7 vs. K9

Sometimes a suckout doesn't have to be a time where you take all your opponents chips, but also a split pot when your dominated. This play occurred in the heads up stage of a SNG. I was SB and low stacked. Pushed with K-7 and my opponent called with K-9. The Queen on the River saved me giving us both two pair; Queens and Tens, King-kicker.
=====================

The above screens are a few that I have saved. I can't show you all my suckouts because then I might look like a fish =). The point of this blog is, don't let a suckout ruin your game and put you on tilt. Remember, at one time you were on the receiving end of a suckout.

Patience and Position

2007-01-04T22:51:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been a spectator to a lot of games. From friend's games to blogger's that I read - I've logged numerous hours on watching them play. I spec to offer advice for my friends on how they can strengthen their game; I watch some of the top upcoming players for my own learning purposes. From time to time I see players gain a really large stack early on, then loose it all and go on tilt which ultimately cost them the game.

Recently I was in an interesting Sit-N-Go where I doubled up early on then lost it all several hands later placing me from "massive chip leader" to the table's short stack. With patience, position, and a little luck I was able to hang on, double up, and place in the money. I'd like to recap this game to show that even after you suffer a massive chip lost and become a true underdog to win - you can still get back in the game by not going on tilt and focusing on your game 100%. This also will be an opportunity to use my newly purchased hand replayer. Without further ado, let's take a look at the SNG.

Hand 1, Blinds 15 / 30

What we know: We are a couple of hands into the SNG, but it is still very early in the game. With blinds at these levels I am not looking to get involved with a lot of pots unless I have a solid hand. So far I have been doing a lot of folding. The player in the Big Blind is the chip leader, seems aggressive. The small blind seems like a total fish. Willing to gamble on any draw or pair, he's slightly up.

Hero: 1405
Villain 1375

Starting pot is 45
Hole cards, Kd Ks

Hero raises to 95, UTG+1 folds, Villain calls, all other players fold.
Heads up action against Hero and Villain
Pot is now 235.

Our Impression: A pair of Kings is definitely a hand I will be playing. Raising under the gun 3x the BB should keep A-Small hands out of the pot, but it's early in the game so if an Ace does flop I have to be careful. If I get action on this hand I am happy. If not, I don't mind taking the blinds down. This early in the game I am not looking to get into all in decisions and large pots. We actually get one caller and we get to see a flop.

Flop: 9d Kc 9s
Hero checks, Villain bets 175, Hero calls
Pot is now 585

Our Impression: We flopped a full house, a 1 in 165 chance. Now we need to maximize our profits. With such a strong hand I am not worried about an Ace coming out on the Turn since pocket Aces would have re-raised preflop. The only cards I need to concern myself with if someone is holding a pair of nines. The percentage of that is so low, I just have to believe my hand is good. What I can hope for is that our Villain has an Ace or a King and thinks it's good. If he does he will bet if we check and we can start to build up a pot. We do check and our Villain bets. A raise here, rather than a call, might make him fold if he's holding Ace high or on a draw. A call here will hopefully induce a later bluff.

Turn: Jd [9d Kc 9s]
Hero checks, Villain Checks

Our Impression: The Turn brings no danger and we check to continue to induce a bluff. Our Villain checks.

River: 8d [Jd 9d Kc 9s]
Hero bets 300, Villain raises to 720, Hero re-raises to 1140, Villain calls and is all in

Our Impression: Our Villain checking last hand didn't help us. If we are to make any more money off this hand we need to weigh in our options to find out what would be profitable. If we check to the villain he might also check and we don't get any more money in the pot. Being that I feel we have the best hand I want to take the opportunity to get a few more dollars from my opponent. The question is how much to bet. If I bet too much I will induce a fold on a medium strength hand. If I bet to give him the odds to call with his medium strength hand I get additional money in the pot. If I bet to give him odds and he feels he has the best hand, he might reraise and we will get even more money in the pot. We actually bet 300 making the total pot 885, giving him almost 3 to 1 on his money to call. He actually reraises and I put him all in. He calls and we take down a rather large pot.

Hero shows full house, Kings full of Nines
Villain shows full house, Eights full of Nines
Hero wins 2985.

Our Impression: This was a great win for us early on. This gives us some chips to work with. Normally I tend to continue playing my solid/tight game here, even after a big win. However, after reading a resent article about being a table bully once your in the situation I am in, I decide to try a new strategy. The results are disastrous.

--------------------------------
Hand 2, Blinds 15 / 30

Hero: 2970
Villain: 1155
Opponent: 1785

Starting pot is 45.
Hole Cards: Kc 9h

Opponent post SB, Hero post BB, Villain (UTG) calls, SB calls, Hero raises to 95, Villain calls, SB folds
Pot is now 220

What we know: We haven't played the last 5 hands since we doubled up. The player UTG has been conservative since he lost a few hundred chips a few hands back. The player in the small blind likes to make bets on the flop, but folds to raises if he doesn't have anything. K-9 os is not a good hand, but may be a chance to attempt a sandwich play. The player UTG did not show strength preflop and the SB only limped in. I am going to use my stack here and the advice in the recently read article to attempt to steal. My thought before the flop is that if we miss it, and someone shows strength, we will back off and fold.

Flop: 9d 6h 7h
Hero bets 180, Villain raises to 360, Hero calls
Pot is now 940

Our Impression: The bet of 180 after the flop can be considered as a continuation bet, but it's also a probe. I raised preflop with not-so-great cards, but hit top pair with a nice kicker and a backdoor straight flush draw. Betting 180 here will hopefully take down the pot. Instead our Villain challenges us and does a one up raise to make it 360 to go. It cost me 180 to win a pot of 760 and I might have the best hand at the moment. The Villain could also be on a steal (or draw) figuring that I raised preflop with overcards and missed the board. Since a one up raise is rather weak, I call for the pot odds offering almost 4 to 1.

Turn: Qs [9d 6h 7h]
Hero checks, Villain bets 390, Hero calls
Pot is now 1720.

Our Impression: We should have bet out on the Turn if we wanted to take this hand down. Instead we checked which showed weakness and our Villain bet. His bet of 390 gives me over 3 to 1 on my money. I still do not know where I am in this hand so I call for the odds. My 9's still might be good and I really don't put my opponent on a strong hand. The Queen didn't help him even though his bet says it did. I really put him on a week hand and still attempting to steal, however I can not be certain since I took no opportunity tosee how good my hand is.

River: Qc [Qs 9d 6h 7h]
Hero checks, Villain bets 310 and is all in, Hero calls
Pot is now 2340

Our Impression: If the Queen didn't help him on the Turn, then it pairing on the river shouldn't have either. There aren't so many hands that bet us that match his play style. I don't put him on pocket 9s since I think he would raise preflop. Pocket 6's and 7's I rule out since I believe he would try to trap some and wouldn't have made the raise on the flop. Queens are reasonable but I still put him on a week hand. I put him on a 9, 6, or 7 with an overcard, or a busted draw. Really the only hand that has me worried that matches his betting is A-9. In the end, calling a bet of 310 into a pot over 2000 is a no brainer. I make the call.

Hero shows two pair, Queens and Nines - King kicker
Villain shows twp pair, Queens and Nines - Ace Kicker

Villain wins 2340.

Our Impression: Our play in this hand was horrible, but we called our opponent's hand. Originally we knew he wasn't on the greatest of hands, then we felt A-9/7/6 matches his betting perfectly. Given the odds we call and loose a pretty large portion of our stack. This was a complete amateur play by myself and I am sick of it just revisiting it.

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Hand 3, Blinds 40 / 80

Hero: 1480
Villain: 1120

Starting pot is 120
Hole Cards: Ac Kd

Villain post SB, Hero Post BB, all players fold to SB, SB limps, Hero raises to 240, SB raises to 1120 and is all in, Hero calls
Pot is now 2240

Hero reveals Ac Kd
Villain reveals 8s 8d

The Showdown: 9c 7s 9s 9d 6s

Hero shows Trip-Nines, Ace-King kicker
Villain shows full house, Nines full of Eights

Villain wins 2240

Our Impression: A-K os is a decent hand heads up, and since all players folded to me and the small blind, we were heads up. I was expecting to win his blind when I raised to 240. The player in the small blind has been on tilt lately and has been throwing around his chips in the last couple hands. When he raised me all in I didn't put him on too strong of a hand. My thought was that he would have raised into me with a good hand and not limped in. I call with Big Slick hoping my opponent was on some A-Q, K-Q type hand. He actually held pocket 8's and they held up. Nothing I can really do in this situation. He slow played his pair and I ended up with a decent hand to loose my money to him.

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Our Impression: After that last lost we are now the low stack at the table. Lets take a look at our stack in relation to the rest of the players:

Seat 1: 3430
Seat 2: Busted Out
Seat 3: 2300
Seat 4: 670
Seat 5: 2240
Hero, Seat 6: 360

The blinds are 40/80 and will be increasing shortly. It cost 120 a round, leaving us with an M of 3 and we are on the SB next hand. It's all in or nothing right now. We must double up to stay alive.

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Staying Alive at M 3

With such insignificant chips we really want to shove all our chips in the center if we are going to play a hand. But we can't also just post and fold while we wait for massive cards to come our way, we must also play our position.

Push 1 (360 Chips): Dealt A-2 OS and in the Small Blind. All players fold to the button who limps in. Hero shoves, BB folds, Button calls. Button shows A-9 OS. The Showdown: Qh 7c 4s 7h 4h. We get lucky and split the pot with both players having two pair, Sevens and Fours, Ace-Queen Kicker.

Push 2 (400): Dealt Ad Qd in the cutoff. UTG folds, we push all in, Button and both Blinds fold. We scoop the pot.

Push 3 (440): Dealt Ah Qh in the SB. UTG raises to 160 (blinds 40/80), players fold to Hero, Hero pushes all in, BB folds, UTG player calls. UTG shows K-9 OS. The Showdown: 4s 6s Jd 2h Ts. Hero wins 960 with Ace High.

Blinds are now 50 / 100.
Seat 1: 4140
Seat 3: 900
Seat 4: 910
seat 5: 2040
Seat 6, Hero: 960 (M of 6)

Push 4 (960): Dealt Qh Jd UTG. Push in hoping to gain blind money. Cutoff folds, Button Calls for 650 and is all in, all other players fold. Button shows 3-3. The Showdown: 4d Jh 2d 3c 2c. Button wins 1450

Our Impression: Loosing that hand was massive damage in the progress of trying to rebuild our chip stack. We are now left with 310 chips facing 50 /100 blinds and in the BB next hand. Our move to gain money for the blinds by pushing with Q-J OS was a complete failure.

Push 5 (310). Dealt Ac 3d. UTG folds, Cutoff raises to 200, All players fold to Hero, Hero raises to 310 and is all in. Cutoff calls and reveals Qc 7c. The Showdown: 6s Jc 5s Ks Jd. Hero wins 670 with Ace High.

Push 6 (620): Dealt Ac 3c and on the Button. Action folds to Hero, Hero bets 620 and is all in. SB and BB fold. Hero scoops pot and wins 150.

Push 7 (770): Dealt Kh Ts and UTG. Hero opens with 770 and is all in, all players fold. Hero scoops 150.

Push 8 (770): Dealt Kc Td and on the Button. UTG and Cutoff folds, Hero bets 770 and is all in. Blinds fold, Hero scoops 150.

Blinds are now 60 /120
Seat 1: 3230
Seat 3: 990
Seat 4: 2120
Seat 5: 1740
Seat 6, Hero: 920 (M of 5)

Attempt to Trap 1: Dealt Ah As and UTG. Hero opens pot for 240 (blinds are 60 / 120). All players fold. Hero collects 180.

Push 9 (740): Dealt Kd Qh and UTG. Hero opens for 740 and is all in. Cutoff folds, Button calls, Blinds fold. Button reveals Qd Td. The Showdown: Jh Js As Qs 9c. Players split pot with two pair; Queens and Jacks, Ace Kicker.

Our Impression: Tough split. Leaves us with 830 chips with blinds going up soon.

Blinds are now 80 / 160
Seat 1: 3290
Seat 3: 1020
Seat 4: 2060
Seat 5: 1980
Seat 6, Hero: 650 (M of 2.7)

Push 10 (650): Dealt Ks Kh and UTG. Hero opens for 650 and is all in, all players fold. Hero scoops 240.

Push 11 (650): Dealt Ks 7c on the Button. UTG and Cutoff fold, Hero pushes all in for 650, SB folds, BB calls. BB reveals Qs 6d. The Showdown: 2h 8c 8h Js Kh. Hero wins 1380 with two pair; Kings and Eights, Jack Kicker.

Our Impression: Finally a good double up for us. In my opinion this was a bad call for the BB with Q-6 OS. He only left himself with 370 chips and he is in the SB next hand. The table has become really tight so it's hard to believe he thought Q-6 OS was good.

Standard Play 1 (1380): Dealt Qs Jh and UTG. Hero opens pot for 320. Cutoff folds, Button calls for 290 and is all in, Blinds fold. Button reveals Ah 5d. The Showdown: Qh 4h Tc 4d 8c. Hero wins 820 with two pair; Queens and Fours, Jack High. Button joins the rail.

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Even with our M of 8 we do have enough chips to make some moves. We've knocked out both players at this table so far and we are down to 4 players, sitting 3rd in chips and 500 chips away from 2nd. Our focus now is to take advantage of the growing blinds and the tight table to scoop some chips and sneak our way to 2nd (if not 1st).

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Hand 4, Blinds 100 / 200

Hero: 1670
Villain: 1990
UTG: 4280
Button: 760

Starting pot is 300
Hole Cards: Qc 6s

Hero post SB, Villain post BB, UTG folds, Button folds, Hero limps, BB checks.
Pot is now 400.

What we know: The BB has been super aggressive with us since he won with his two pair, Ace-high (we had the King-high), He's been playing like a bully, pushing all in every time we make a bet preflop or on the flop. I've folded many top pairs when there has been a flush or straight draw on the board and he came over the top of my bet. Going heads up with him, before the cards are even shown, I know he will be aggressive with me.

Flop: 2s Qd Ad
Hero bets 300, Villain raises to 1300, Hero reraises and goes all in for 1570, Villain calls.
Pot is now 3540

Our Impression: We hit our Queen but we have some problems with this flop. One, our pair of Queens has a weak kicker in the hole, 6s. Two, there is an overcard to our Queen out on the board. Three, our probe bet just got reraised to put us all in. Normally this would be a fold, but lets think about this and see why calling might not be a bad idea.

Our opponent has been super aggressive with us when we make a raise preflop or bet the flop. He has pushed all in more then 5 times in this situation
Our opponent only checked his BB. This would make sense with AA, but an aggressive player might raise with A-x in attempts to end the headsup action quickly. Remember, we show no strength preflop
Our opponent has a great opportunity to bluff. We folded to him every time he put us in this situation, and we haven't showed much strength in this hand
Folding leaves us with 1270 (M of 4), calling and winning will leave us with 3540 (M of 11). So if we fold this hand we will be in all in mode again. Doubling up later only brings us to a maximum 2540 (M of 8)(not including blind deductions).

Because of the strong chance that our opponent may be bluffing, and the added support that if we win this hand we almost lock a money finish - we make the call.

Villain reveals Kd 8s (a bluff)

The Showdown: 3h 7c [2s Qd Ad]
Hero wins 3540 with a pair of Queens.

Our Impression: This ended up being a great call on our part. Over time by just playing the value of the cards this is a money loosing play. The ability to read your opponent, remember previous betting habits, and going with your gut feeling can make a play like this all the difference in your tournament. To the person sitting on the rail, this may seem like a horrible call, but that person in the same situation with the same knowledge about their opponent - this call may look like a really good one. The end result is that call places us second in chips. 3rd place is sitting at over 700, and fourth has little over 400. We should definitely make the money as long as we play smart and stay our of trouble.

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Summary of the Ending: The third place in chips ended up going all in a few hands and ran into our super aggressive player's K-K. The Cowboys held up and we were down to three. Shortly after Mr Aggressive pushed with K-4 suited and ran into Big Stack's A-K offsuite. Slick held up when the board came 3s Kh 7c 5s Qd.

We made it to heads up and lasted a few rounds. My opponent kept moving all in every hand. The good about this is I know he felt uncomfortable actually playing a hand against me, the bad is I got a run of crappy cards and I didn't want to risk my tournament on a hand like 5-2 OS. With the blinds 120 / 240 and a stack of 1240 I ended up making a move with JT. My opponent called with 67 OS and flopped a monster hand that gave me no chance to win.

Conclusion: The reason for this post is just as the topic indicated, have patience and play your position and you can recover from any tournament disaster. You can't go on tilt when you make a stupid play or donk move and loose money on it. Learn from the mistake then focus on what you need to do to recover. Recovering in this game took almost the whole length of the game. When my shoves were called I got a little luck and ran into some walls. Each time I tried to maximize the outcome in a positive way and keep looking at the next step I need to do to get more chips. What it comes down to is believe in yourself, your ability, and stay focus. Real winners can get back up after a hard defeat.

New Years Resolutions

2007-01-01T12:16:00.000-05:00

It's officially 2007, so Happy New Years everyone! With bringing in the New Years it's also time to bring in some self commitments known as "resolutions". These resolutions are usually self goals that you wish to have accomplished by next year. While most people's resolutions are to loose weight, quit smoking, or even find a new job; a poker players resolution can be quite different. Personally I was not going to publish a list of resolutions because I think they are some what pointless. The person who make the resolution to loose weight will most likely make the same resolution next year while the smoker wanting a new job will be at the same company New Years party with a cig in his hand cheering for the 2008 ball to drop. But seeing that other poker bloggers are making a list I decided I'd do the same, only in my list I will revisit this list from time to time and cross off the accomplishments as they happen. Being this is suppose to be a blog that tracks not only my insight of poker (which I want challenged by my readers), but also tracks my progress - I feel this could be a fun and useful way to better myself. Maybe for once I'll actually live up to my New Years Resolutions!

Without further ado, here are my 2007 Poker Resolutions in no particular order:

Sharpen my ability to read opponents by focusing on everyday observation. Too often I walk into a place and I can not recall the room or building after I leave. Being able to do this should increase my observation skills which should help my live game.
Play more live games at casinos. If I want to strengthen my game I must stop playing the same people over and over in home games. Online games are great practice but elements of reading people are not there. Since I feel I am a better live player then online player, practice at casino's should strengthen my abilities.
Become more physically fit. Most do this for a girl or for other reasons, my reason is for stamina at a poker table. I find myself getting tired after several hours of playing at a table. Being more physically fit should allow me to stay focused longer and provide me with better stamina
Move into $40-50 regular sit and goes online. Currently my game is strong in the $10-20 range. By the end of this year I would like to be moved up from the micro limits.
Regularly finish ITM in 45-90 SNGs. I seem to go deep often but make a silly play and loose it.
Take down a big game. Whether it's a live game or online, I would like to achieve my first multi-thousand dollar win.
Play at a low limit, short handed World Series NL Hold'em side game. The catch here is, I want my poker winnings to pay for it.
Play and win Sats. I always seem to shy away from them and there is so much potential to make some really big wins with minimal investment.

Well that list seems to sum it all up. It's a big list for me with a lot of big goals. But I have confidence in my ability and my game level that I can take down most of these goals on the list. As I do, I will mark them off and revisit the list at the end of this year.

For all those with your own resolutions, good luck - I hope your able to accomplish them. Once again, Happy New Year.

Tidbits of Poker / New Years

2006-12-30T10:53:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while so I figured I'd do something "interesting". Here are some tidbits on poker's history;

China invented the playing card around 900 AD, it was a variation of their domino game
Poker is said to derive from 'an nas', a 147th Century Persian game that consisted of 5 players and 25 cards
The French invented the suites; Spades, Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts
Spades represent royalty, Diamonds represent merchants, Clubs represent peasants, and Hearts represent clergy.
In the late 1930's, a fifth suite was introduced but never caught on since everyone would have to purchase new decks
America not only invented the Joker, but were the first to print numbers on both sides of the card (no need to turn the card around to see it's value)
Former President Richard Nixon used poker winnings to pay for his running in the U.S Congress in 1946, he won.
When Columbus landed in America (yes in 1942), he plucked leaves from trees and painted pictures on them for playing cards.
In the 1800's, a Straight beat a Flush
John Mantagu, refusing to leave a poker table to eat, order meat between two slices of bread so he could eat with one hand, and play card with the other. This was the invention of the "Sandwich".
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (1890 - 1977), a famous American comedian, got the nickname "Groucho" because he always wore a grouch bag around his neck. The grouch bag contained his poker money.
Poker is known as a "vying game". Vying game is actually a class for games (like drama, action, or horror would be for a movie). Games listed under the Vying Class are games that involve betting on the quality of card combinations in one's hand rather then playing the cards out."
The first documented game of Poker played in the United States was in New Orleans in 1829
Edmond Hoyle was an avid writer for whist, backgammon, chess, quadrille, piquet, and brag. Hoyle is said to have never played modern poker since he passed 150 years before it's invention. In 1979 he was a charter inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame.
The phrase "blue chip", used in the Stock Market to name a well-established company making solid and/or high earnings, is said to have derived from Poker. The "blue chip" in poker is commonly the most valuable chip.
Other common everday phrases are also derived from poker. Some of the least obvious phrases include "the buck stops here", "beats me", "high roller", "pass the buck", "stack up", and "wild card".
"Card Sharp" is a person who purposely cheats at cards with the intension of making money. It's said that "card magicians" were known to deploy this tactic since they had the best pratice employing sleight of hand. This enabling them to keep control of the order of cards - or one specific card for their benifit. The common term for this behavior is a card "mechanic".

While I am sure there are tons of other interesting tidbits from the orgins of poker, I will leave you with the above list. If you know of any others, feel free to leave them in the comments. Have a great New Year everyone!

Review: Phil Hellmuth Presents "Read'Em and Reap"

2006-12-27T19:45:00.000-05:00

Each month I will take some time to talk about a poker related product and voice my opinion about it, for the good or for the bad. Being that the Christmas Holidays have recently passed, and you might have some gift certificates laying around, I wanted to give you January's review early. Now you can spend your extra money on something worth wild instead of on something silly.

This January I would like to talk about Phil Hellmuth Presents Read'Em and Reap.

Phil Hellmuth Presents "Read'Em and Reap", known as 'REAP' through out the rest of this review, is written by Joe Navarro, a retired FBI special agent; with guest Marvin Karlins and commentary by 11 time WSOP bracelet winner, Phil Hellmuth. The book is published by HarperCollings Publishers.

To understand a little about what REAP has in store you must first take a look at the man who wrote the text. Joe Navarro has 25 years of counterintelligence/counterterrorism experience as a special agent for the FBI, and is know as a "human lie detector". In 2004 Joe was invited on a Discovery Channel feature entitled "More Than Human" where they gathered a hand full of people who's life profession was reading people's lies. These human lie detectors were matched up against a polygraph, a voice stress analyzer, and a pupil dilation apparatus. Each human, and machine, were presented with 25 verbal statements and then had to determine if the subject was lying or telling the truth. Joe was able to nail 18 correct answers, better then two machines, which out beat every human but one, Annie Duke, who also scored 18 correct out of 25. Joe was amazed at Annie's ability to read people, and thus his interest in poker began. Joe assisted Annie in strengthen her ability to pick up tells, and hiding her own, and was very successful. Soon after, Joe was being hired by dozens of professional players for analyzing their play to become more solid and unpredictable. Through all this, Joe ended up teaching at Camp Hellmuth and thus his relationship with Phil Hellmuth began.

Once Joe realized that poker players take tells very serious, he decided to make a book that reveals some of the most common, but often over looked, tells in poker. His book covers the following topics:

How to conceal your own tells
The most honest parts of the human body
Tells of Engagement
High- Low-confidence Tells
Pacifying behaviors
Acting "Hollywooding"
And other topics, including on how to handle a Pro player if he is at your table.

Each topic is it's own chapter. Some topics span over multiple chapters which makes the book a total of 198 pages. REAP is very easy to read, grammatically and visually. Most tells feature a large, clear picture of the action being taken place. The topics transition easily from one to the other, with key points being stressed more then once. At the end of each major "lesson", Phil Hellmuth comments on what Joe just preached and enlightens you on how he was able to use such lesson as a benefit in real life.

Phil's comments are short, and to the point. They do not take away from the reading, but they also do not add much to it either.

The tells in this book do not nearly reach the amount of tells Caro's Book of Poker Tells, however; the tells discussed in this book are far more in depth and are demostrated clearer than in Caro's book. This book is purely about quality over quanity. REAP also features tells that are not mentioned in Caro's book, some that seem more obvious once your eyes are opened up to them. Reader's of Caro's Book of Poker Tells should find the information in this book helpful and insightful - not a waste of time and money.

REAP is an excellent book, especially for under $20, you really can't go wrong. I personally have been able to apply tells learned from this book to my live game. I have made some great laydowns, and great calls by being able to read my opponent from lessons learned from reading REAP. While I did fine Caro's book helpful and interesting, REAP is a book I will be revisiting more often due to it's ease of reading, detailed analysis, and more modern approach to the subject.

My verdict: Buy it

Happy Holidays

2006-12-24T22:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays everyone! Things are going great on my end! My game has never been stronger, and I am looking forward to building back up a solid bankroll while I am on a rush. As Negreanu said, "believe in yourself". The recent blog post by Daniel seemed to replicate my thoughts and actions almost to a 'T'. I was suffering the same doubts as Daniel, and amazingly the same night I go off of being 'on tilt' he posted his blog about the same. Instead of trying to make my own interpretation I will just direct you to Daniel's post. Everything he says about "believing in yourself" is totally true. Once you believe in your own ability you will be amazed on how much simpler the game is. If you have read this far and still have not read Daniel's blog, then do so now!

In closing, the real reason for this post is to wish all my readers a happy holiday for whatever you celebrate! "May your cards be live and your pots monsters!"

Cheers!!!

SNG Lesson Part Two

2006-12-17T19:32:00.000-05:00

This blog is a continuation of our previous entry. If you have not read the previous entry yet, then this blog will do nothing but confuse you. So please read the previous entry first.

Hand 11, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 1878
Unknown: 1052
Hero 6070

Unknown post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Ks 4h

Sana raises to 800, Unknown folds, Hero folds.

Our Impression: Our play here could have been to call or push on Sana and take down this pot. Sana just made a huge laydown prior to this hand and I doubt he is capable of doing so on this hand. Our K-5 off-suite is not a great hand to call his raise, even if it's 400 more. I am almost certain that regardless of the flop, Sana will push all in and I will loose 800 chips instead of 400. A King on the flop only makes it worse since I will most likely call his all in and be an underdog to win (Sana having a higher King). The best flop that can happen for me is two pair or trip fives. Also, knowing Sana's play structure we know he wants to be called. A one up raise from Sana means AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, or pocket pair down to 8-8. All these hands have us beat so we must lay down our King high.

Sana wins 1000 and shows pocket 7s.

Our Impression: Not as strong as a hand that we'd expect from Sana, but still had us beat as a 30% underdog to win.

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Hand 12, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 2478
Unknown: 852
Hero 5670

Hero post SB, Sana post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Ts 7s

Unknown folds, Hero calls, Sana Checks

Flop: 5s 7d Js
Hero bets 400, Sana folds

Hero wins 800

Our Impression: We limp in with our medium strength hand and hit middle pair and a flush draw off the flop. A 400 bet here will tell me the strength of my hand without risking a lot. If he calls I can put Sana on middle pair or a flush draw. If he raises, I put Sana on a pair of Jacks. Sana folding made life easier.

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Hand 13, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 2078
Unknown: 852
Hero 6070

Sana post SB, Unknown post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, 5h 2c

Hero folds, Sana folds, Unknown walks with 400.

Our Impression: We fold our weak hand on the button. This should make complete scenes. What I don't understand is how Sana walked a guy that had only 452 chips after posting the BB. In my opinion, bad play by Sana if he had any sort of hand better than mine.

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Hand 14, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 1878
Unknown: 1052
Hero 6070

Unknown post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, 7h 3h

Sana raises to 1400, Unknown calls 852 and is all in, Hero folds.

Sana reveals Kh Jd
Unknown reveals Kc Ts

Our Impression: With Sana's rather large raise I don't put him on too grand of a hand since a small bet would more likely get called. However with my weak hand I opted to fold. I did consider calling and hopefully Sana and I would cooperatively check it down and increase the chances of eliminating Mr. Unknown; however, I didn't want to risk the fact that Sana might push on the Flop and force me to fold if I did not make my hand.

Ultimately we made the right fold. Sana's K-J has Mr. Unknown's K-T dominated by almost 70%. All we can hope for is that Sana's K-J holds up and we go into heads up action.

The Showdown: 9d 8c Ks Qc 5d

Sana wins 2504 with a pair of Kings, Queen/Jack kicker.

Our Impression: This was a very interesting board. After the flop Sana was 80% to win. After the Turn, Sana was still about 80% to win but couldn't win with Two pair as a Jack would have made his opponent an straight. Sana needed to dodge a three Tens, and three Jacks to win. If the board paired, other than a King, Sana would tie. Even though the Queen wasn't "thee" card his opponent needed to win, it did open up a lot of outs for him. Sana dodge a lot of bullets to win.

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Heads Up 1, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3330
Hero 5670

Hero post SB, Sana post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Qh 3d

Hero calls 200, Sana checks

Flop: 8d 9h 6d
Sana checks, Hero checks

Turn: Jh [8d 9h 6d]
Sana bets 800, Hero folds

Sana wins 800.

Our Impression: Our first mistake was not raising with Queen high. After the flop missed our hand I didn't want to force anything since I still had a huge chip leader over Sana. My intensions were to bet on the Turn if he checked to me again, however he beat me to it and I layed down my hand.

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Heads Up 2, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3730
Hero 5270

Sana post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 600
Hole cards, Ac Ks

Sana folds. Hero walks with 400.

Our Impression: Even though we had a great hand Sana did not know this. Mathematically it was incorrect for him to fold since he was getting plenty of odds to at least limp in. In this case he was lucky to fold since I would have raised my hand and he would have lost 400 instead of 200; however, if he continues to fold on the SB without a hand it will work into my favor as this heads up progresses.

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Heads Up 3, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3530
Hero 5470

Hero post SB, Sana post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Qs Jd

Hero raises to 900, Sana folds

Our Impression: A standard raise here with Q-J os and we get no action.

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Heads Up 4, Blinds 250 / 500
Sana: 3130
Hero 5870

Sana post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 750.
Hole cards, 9d 2c

Sana folds, Hero walks 500.

Our Impression: We already know that Sana has been folding too much heads up. There is nothing to discuss here.

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Heads Up 5, Blinds 250 / 500
Sana: 2880
Hero 6120

Sana post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 750.
Hole cards, Jc 5d

Hero calls 250, Sana checks

Flop: Jd 6c Qh
Sana bets 1000, Hero raises to 2000, Sana reraises to 2380, Hero calls 380.

Hero reveals Jc 5d
Sana reveals Td 9h

The Showdown: 4d 3h [Jd 6c Qh]

Hero wins 5,760 with two pair, Jacks and Fours
Sana takes second place.

Our Impression: Sana got caught shoving his chips in on a draw. Something I always preach about not doing. I believe Sana felt I was on a complete bluff and figured he had a better shot at winning then I did. If he would have made his hand, it would have been a great call, but mathematically this was a loosing play. Sana is a great heads up player and could have waited for a better time to shove his chips in the pot. I believe that Sana got impatient and it cost him all the difference from finishing first to finishing second.

In conclusion this was an extremely good, and tough battle. I was able to pull off a win by being a complete underdog coming into the action. The ability to know when to push and know when to fold really came into play for me in this game. As I look back on my play I do notice some things I should have done different, but over all I believe I played a well game especially in my situation. I do encourage feedback on my play, so please feel free to comment.

Cheers!

SNG Lesson Part One

2006-12-17T17:49:00.000-05:00

In my recent blog I mentioned that I wanted to spend some time and discuss one of my SNG sessions with you. In this session we came into three-way action being the underdog and also facing the bubble position. Over the next few post I want to share with you this experience as I went from the complete underdog to victor by being able to read my opponent, read the texture of the board, and being patient. Without further ado let's drive right into the SNG session.

What we know: We are facing one known opponent, Sana, and one unknown opponent. Before we begin let's take a look at what we know about each opponent.

Sana - His strategy is mainly Tight-Aggressive. He normally raises 3-4 times the BB about 90 percent of the time when he holds a good hand. He likes continuation bets, and will put you all in if he reads that you missed the board. He's definitely someone we need to watch out for. The only advantage to this is he gained his strategy by studying us; realizing that Tight-Aggressive can definitely pay off, he has adapted this method himself. The downfall is, he knows we know this and obviously knows how we like to play.

Unknown - This guy first seemed like a really lucky fish but then something else developed. It seemed at first he took some chances to gain chips, but now he only seems to push at pots when he has the best (or at least a great) hand. I've seen him move all in several times and get called - his hand was a monster hand and he won. We want to keep pots small when going against him.

Hand 1, Blinds 150 / 300
Sana: 3328
Unknown: 4187
Hero: 1485

Sana post SB. Unknown post BB, Pot is 450.
Hole cards, 3s Ts

Unknown calls 300

Our Impression: T3 suited isn't a bad hand in the small blind, but with the amount of chips we have I really want to put myself in a situation where I can bet all in and double up. With the button calling the blind the value of my all in now can be called by not just one, but two opponents who have me more than covered. I opted to fold.

Sana checks, Unknown makes a bet after the flop and Sana folds.

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Hand 2, Blinds 150 / 300
Sana: 3028
Unknown: 4637
Hero: 1335

Sana post SB, Unknown post BB. Pot is 450.
Hole cards, Ah 5c

Hero raises to 1,355 and is all in

Our Impression: With out low stack and first to act we are happy to push all in here. If we get called we might have to suck out if our opponent has an Ace. Otherwise we would be an underdog to only pocket pair. In reality we just hope to get the blinds and move on to the next hand.

Sana and the Unknown folds, Hero wins 750.

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Hand 3, Blinds 150 / 300
Sana: 2878
Unknown: 4187
Hero 1935

Hero post SB, Sana post BB. Pot is 450.
Hole cards, As 3s

Unknown raises to 600, Hero calls 450, Sana raises to 2878 and is all in

Our Impression: Our Hero raised on the button which means he might not have a great hand and could be attempted to steal. We have A3 suited which is a fine hand to see a flop with especially at a discount. Normally I might push all in here, but with the Unknown raising I would like to see a flop. If the flop comes out with an Ace, a flush draw, or a straight draw, I might push all in and hope my hand holds up. My plan is ruined when Sana decides to shove. Being that the Unknown player raised and I called this raise, he must have a really good hand to come over the top of both of us like this. I don't put him on wired royalty since I think we would want to trap a little. But I do think we are at least beat and we are going to have to lay down this hand.

Unknown folds, Hero folds.
Sana shows Ac Jh and wins 1800

Our Impression: He had our Ace dominated. The only thing we had going for us would have been the flush. This ended up being a good fold even though it was a tough one. My timer almost ran out before I clicked the fold button.

--------------------------------
Hand 4, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 4078
Unknown: 3587
Hero 1335

Sana post SB, Unknown post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, As Qc

Hero raises to 1335 and is all in, Sana folds, Unknown calls 935.
Hero reveals As Qc
Unknown reveals Ah Qs

The Showdown: 8h Ad 7d 6h 4d

Hero and Unknown splits pot for 1435 each

Our Impression: Another situation when we are first to act and have great cards for three-way action. When our opponent calls we aren't as nervous as we would be if we pushed in with Ace-small or King high. It's a slight disappointment when our opponent reveals he is holding similar cards, allowing us the only chance to win is a long shot flush draw. Or course there are positives in this scenario as well... we didn't loose the showdown so we are not out of the game.

--------------------------------
Hand 5, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3878
Unknown: 3687
Hero 1435

Unknown post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Kd Qc

Sana folds, Unknown calls 200, Hero raises to 1435 and is all in
Unknown folds

Hero wins 800.

Our Impression: With Sana folding and the small blind only calling I have full confidence that my KQ might be the best hand. With my low chip stack I can not survive very much longer facing these large blinds. I am fortunate to get dealt such great cards in my situation and gladly shove all in. As I thought, my opponent's cards weren't strong and he elects to fold.

--------------------------------
Hand 6, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3878
Unknown: 3287
Hero 1835

Hero post SB, Sana post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Ks Qd

Unknown calls 400, Hero raises to 1835 and is all in, Sana folds, Unknown calls 1435

Hero reveals Ks Qd
Unknown reveals Ac 7d

The Showdown: Ts Td Qh 2s 8c

Hero wins 4070 with two pair, Queens and Tens

Our Impression: When dealt KQ off-suite again I am more than glad to shove all in. Our opponent calls us with a lesser hand then I believe he would have if we didn't move all in on the last couple hands. In his mind we keep going all in, what he doesn't know is that we definitely had the cards to do it. When our opponent shows his A7 off-suite I know that I am a slight underdog to win and I must make a hand.

The flop was beautiful for me. With a complete rainbow board it eliminated the possibilities of any crazy flush draws he could make on me. It also put me at over 85% to win with him needing an Ace, or two running Sevens to make his hand. The Turn made things better given me over 90% to win with leaving him only 3 outs, an Ace. The River sealed his fate and I double up to chip leader.

--------------------------------
Hand 7, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3478
Unknown: 1452
Hero 4070

Sana post SB, Unknown post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Ts 8s

Hero folds, Sana folds, Unknown walks with 400.

Our Impression: We just won a lot of chips and we don't need to do anything stupid to loose them. It's free for us to fold here and I don't want to get into a duel with Unknown, as I have a feeling he will come over the top if I limp in a pot with him. I get out of the way and let Sana take care of him. Sana walks him which seem unusual to me. The only thing I can imagine here is Sana had horrible cards and also had a feeling Mr. Unknown would come over the top especially after just loosing a bunch of chips to an underdog. - Sana, your comments are welcome as to why the heck you walked him =).

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Hand 8, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3278
Unknown: 1652
Hero 4070

Unknown post SB, Hero post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, 7d 4c

Sana raises to 1400, Unknown folds, Hero folds

Sana wins 1000.

Our Impression: With Sana's raise off the button to 3.5 times the BB we must respect his hand and fold our horrible 7-4 off suite. There is no reason to protect our blinds especially since Sana has not done a lot of raising pre-flop.

--------------------------------
Hand 9, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3878
Unknown: 1452
Hero 3670

Hero post SB, Sana post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Kh 5c

Unknown folds, Hero calls 200, Sana checks

Flop: As 9d 5c
Hero bets 400, Sana folds.

Hero wins 800.

Our Impression: Our hand isn't great but worth seeing a flop. Raising here might be an option, but with Sana shoving a big raise last time I know he could push all in and attempt to collect my raise. I would have to fold so I just elect to call hoping I can steal off the flop. The flop's rainbow A-9-2 can look intimidating if your not holding an Ace. I make a "feeler bet" to hopefully steal this pot. If Sana calls I can put him on the 9's, if he raises I can put him on the Ace. Sana folds without hesitation and my "bluff" worked.

--------------------------------
Hand 10, Blinds 200 / 400
Sana: 3478
Unknown: 1452
Hero 4070

Sana post SB, Unknown post BB. Pot is 600.
Hole cards, Ad Ks

Hero calls 400, Sana raises to 1600, Unknown folds.
Hero re-raises to 4070 and is all in, Sana folds.

Hero wins 3600

Our Impression: My call was an attempt to mix up my play with full intentions to check-raise hoping that someone would raise pre-flop. Sana makes my day by betting 1600, 4 times the BB. Our Unknown player folds and I move all in. The hands I put Sana on are pocket pair (but not A-A or K-K) or an Ace (or King) down to 7. If Sana held pocket A-A or K-K I would see him placing a bet 2-3 time the BB, wanting action. The large pre-flop bet indicated to me that he didn't want to be called but still had a hand. So why push all in then? Sana committed almost half his chips in this hand. It's a huge laydown for anyone and most people would feel that they are pot committed. I also didn't want to call, have a flop that missed me and be facing an all in bet. I rather put the money up now and hope to either be in the lead or have him fold. Surprisingly he folds. Sana announced in the chat he was holding A8 suited before he folded. Even though we did read him correctly this was a huge laydown for him. He ran out his timer and could not make a decision. I believe if he had more time he might have called realizing the pot odds he was looking at. Of course I would have welcomed the call being over 65% to win and about 10% to split. Sana was a huge underdog and I don't know how he folded. Any higher of an Ace or if time allowed I believe I would have had a call.

This concludes our first 10 hands in which we came from small stack to chip leader and looking rather healthy. In my following post I will continue this three way action until we are down to the last cards being dealt. As always, I encourage feedback on how these hands where played. Usually I receive IMs or e-mails but I highly encourage you to use the comments instead. Therefore your feedback can be shared with everyone.

Until next time,
y.

Back In Action!

2006-12-17T01:02:00.000-05:00

As some of my closes friends know I went on a major tilt in online poker. I managed to loose a good percentage of my bankroll in a matter of a month, enough to force me to play lower limits and ultimately take a break that lasted almost 3 weeks. In those 3 weeks I caught up on some much needed reading and self-analyzing that really put me on a whole different level. After looking at my play, I realize I was given credit to the game being too much of a challenge for no apparent reason. Oddly enough, I did not have this problem when it came to live games. My live games were solid and I won almost every game I played in. However, I was on such a tilt online it almost didn't matter how much I was making in person.

Today marks my first day back to the online SNG world. My very first game I was out in 7th by making a very, very stupid play. I took a breather and relax and been finishing first ever since. In one day I have made back half the money I lost over the month and I hope to continue my rush until I make it all back and then some. I feel like "I'm back" after all this time. Finally I am controlling tables again, making moves that make sense, folding good hands when I know I am beat, and calling people's bluffs correctly. All these qualities I always had pre-tilt and seem to now refound them. I am very happy with my play today and I will be going over my hand histories over the next couple days, sharing some wicked calls and discussing some of the plays with you all.

Well it's late, passed 1AM here, so I will wrap this post up. Just know that "Yabi's Back" and I am on a roll. I just hope it wasn't a one day thing =)

On a side note, great play by my friend Sana tonight. In my last game for the night my friend Sana decided to join me. We ended up going heads up after a rather lengthy three way action. Coming into the three way action I was the underdog, but I managed to double up through the big stack and I just kept growing my chip stack until I was chip leader. Sana ultimately busted out the third guy and we were left heads up. I think this is the first time I was actually heads up with a real life friend in an online tournament. It was a very interesting battle that I ultimately pulled off a win. It was a lot of fun and Sana and I were reported for "playing together as a team". Which was completely false. Sana and I have busted out each other many times in these online tournaments, enough to definitely show we do not play as a team. I want his money just as bad as anyone else's on the table... and same goes for him I'm sure.

Needless to say the three way action with me being the underdog has really left me with a lot to discuss. I will definitely be covering that bit in the future, showing how I went from the complete underdog to chip leader on the bubble with both stacks being aggressive to knock me out. It should be a very informative read... and I am sure Sana will be doing some close analyzing as well =)

Cheers!

Review: Harrington on Hold'em Volume 2

2006-12-10T16:52:00.000-05:00

Each month I will take some time to talk about a poker related product and voice my opinion about it, for the good or for the bad. This month I would like to talk about Harrington on Hold'em, Volume 2: The Endgame. I feel this is a great product to review since last month we looked at Harrington on Hold'em Volume 1.

Harrington on Hold'em Volume 2, known as 'HoH2' through out the rest of this review, is written by none other than Dan Harrington himself along with Bill Robertie and is published by Two-Plus-Two Publishing. This is the second of what is now a three volume set and focuses on the following main topics:

Making Moves
Inflection Points
Multiple Inflection Points
Short Tables
Heads-Up

Each topic is it's own chapter with the total book reaching a little more then 440 pages. Just like the first volume, each chapter is broken down into sections starting out with your standard informative text then ending with what is known as "the Problems" - a series of actual hands discussed in detail that relate to the knowledge learned in that chapter. This gives you "real world" examples on what you should do, or should have done, in a variety of situations. Does volume 2 of Harrington's series make the $29.95 retail price tag worth the purchase? Let's find out.

The structure of this book is identical to Volume 1. Each chapter begins with a lesson and ends with a variety of "problems". As mentioned in the previous review, these "problems" are real-world examples that show you how to use the information in the lessons you just read. In some examples it tells you what you should have done, then says "instead you did this", and than attempts to get you out of trouble. Such format makes Harrington's books a great and interesting read, allowing the reader to learn above and beyond the context of the lesson.

As for the content, HOH2 wastes no time and dives right into the core elements of No Limit Hold'em starting out with lessons on "making moves" - giving readers valuable information on when to bluff, when to slow play, and how to successfully deploy more complex "moves" on your opponent. Diving right into such information might seem overwhelming to the "beginner" Hold'em player but intermediate players should pick it right up with little or no problems. If the lessons seem a little too advance for you then I would suggest putting down HOH2 and picking up his first volume. Harrington writes this book as a continuation to his first book with the complete impression that the reader has already completed Volume 1.

Once Harrington covers how to make moves in No Limit Hold'em he goes the next step further and introduces "when" to make these moves. Using Magriel's M -the ratio of your stack to the current total of blinds and antes - Harrington shows you a easy to understand system that encourages you to play certain ways depending if your in the "green", "yellow", "orange", or "red" zone. He also includes his own principle titles Q, which goes hand to hand with Magriel's M to make the best all around decisions while your in a tournament. Reading and understanding this section alone is invaluable to any beginning NL Hold'em player looking to strengthen their game and worth the $30 alone.

The book then transcends into how to make more "advanced" moves and ultimately teaches you valuable heads-up information with some real world hand examples from known poker professionals. All while giving you tons of knowledge and examples in between.

HOH2 includes more "problems" then in Volume 1; however, the lessons are more advance and might require re-reading to completely understand all the information presented. HOH2 by it's self is a valuable and informative book for any intermediate NL Hold'em player. Along side Volume 1, HOH2 is a priceless continuation for the beginning player. Think of Volume 1 and 2 as one large book covering the topics of NL Hold'em.

When you read this book you really feel like your getting into the mind of Harrington and getting to see all angles and aspects of a situation. After completing this text you should feel more confident in your game and should see noticeable results as you recover key topics from time to time. You should have greater confidence in making it to the final table and then know what to do once your there. Harrington even covers what to do if your down to the final few players and someone brings up the idea of making a prize split. How can you go wrong?

My verdict: Buy it

Hand Percentages

2006-12-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

All too often you see beginning poker players over value their face cards and then are completely stunned when they don't hold up. This ignorance is also seen in some intermediate players. Many books tell you never to fall in love with any hand and hands like TT, JJ, KJ, etc aren't as strong as they appear to be. These books might also include simple charts you can read to figure out the real value of your starting hand. In the attached picture I have conducted my own research and laid out the real values of these hands facing a variety of opponents.

The cart is simple to read. The first column states the hand that you are dealt. The next column indicates the starting strength of the hand. In the remaining columns named (10, 9, 8, 6, 5, and 2) are the win ratios of these hand's preflop against the listed amount of opponents.

For example, you are dealt AJ off suite in a 6 person table are are first to act. The starting strength of your hand is 90%, but against 6 opponents in a showdown you will win 26% of the time. This makes this hand an easy fold unless you have control over your table or facing a tight table in which a raise will chase most opponents out.

In the future I look to explore other starting hands such as small pairs and suited connectors. I hope you find this chart useful.

Gifts for the Poker Player

2006-12-04T15:04:00.000-05:00

Turn on almost any radio station and your bound to hear it. Walk into any retail store and your bound to see it. On your way home from the office you'll probably notice it. What is it? It is the holiday season and with that comes the stress of finding the perfect gift for the poker player in your life. Whether it's a friend or a loved one, deciding on what to get them for the holidays can be a hard feat. With this in thought here are some gift ideas that might help you out.

WPT Dealer Button w/Timer
In addition to serving as your dealer button this device allows the user to program blinds from 5 to 95 minutes in five-minute increments. During the tournament players hear an audible alarm at the one-minute warning and again to signify the end of the round.

RadioShack Portable Texas Hold'em Handheld Game
Take the excitement of Texas Hold'em wherever you go with this handheld game from Excalibur. You can play up to seven players or take on the game by yourself.

Daniel Negreanu's Stacked
The first video game to bring the next-generation gameplay and broadcast quality production to Texas Hold'em Poker. Learn everything from the fundamentals to advance strategies from poker's premiere player and refine your game against the world's most advance artificial intelligence system before testing your skills in massive online tournaments.

KEM Poker Size Regular Index
Kem Plastic Playing Cards is a 60-year-old company specializing in one product - playing cards which are 100% cellulose acetate plastic. Kem playing cards contain no vinyl, which is the raw material used by all other playing card manufacturers for their "plastic" playing cards.

Poker Chip Sets
A poker player can never have too many chips. Craft your own personal chip set for your gift. Just remember, the higher the gram of the poker chip, the better the chip. And if your gift is for a female be sure to check out the WPT Ladies Night Pink Chipset.

Pokers Most Wanted Collectible Playing Card Deck
This deck exclusively features the Worlds most renowned Professional Poker Players. The deck contains 54 of the best players ever to play the game, reproduced in beautiful full color photographs.

Oops! I Won Too Much Money
Tom Schneider, a former CEO, is currently a professional poker player. After noticing the similarities between the business and gaming worlds, he realized that he had a story to tell. The book is the result of Tom's experience in the boardroom and at the poker table. Rated 5 stars at Amazon and a recommended read from CardPlayer magazine this "non poker strategy" book offers lessons in life worth reading.

Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap
Advice from former FBI counterintelligence, Joe Navarro reveals knowledge obtain through his training on how to read people. This book will help you decode and interpret your opponents' body language and other silent tip-offs while concealing your own. Must read for any serious poker player.

The above list should help you with your decisions on what to purchase. Other options include gift certificates where poker books and / or supplies are sold. As well, some online poker sites offer gift certificates which can be a great gift for any frequent online poker player. If you find other great ideas please feel free to share them with everyone else. Good hunting!

Instructions from the Rail

2006-12-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

Your four to the flush with the nut flush draw and your opponent pushes all in with one card to come. Your big stack and have him way covered. Your pot odds are 5:1, and your chances of hitting your flush is 4:1. Although the odds are not in favor, calling his bet doesn't hurt your stack and if you win you knock the opponent out. When you look at the standings you notice this player is on the bubble. Knock him out and it's guaranteed money. You call and nail your flush.

In the end, good call right? You hit your hand and now your guaranteed money. You feel good about your decision and the slight risk paid off. People around the table comment you, "Nice call", "Nice catch". Overall you feel pretty good about your call and then it happens. The mad, crazed, busted out player goes off on you calling you spewing out every "poker" insult under the sun. He criticize your play like a mini Phil Hellmuth and doesn't stop. Just keeps going, and going, and going....

A question if you will; don't you find it mildly ironic that people who normally call players "donks", or other forms of loosing/amateur comments are from those who are sitting on the rail? I mean, I just don't get it. Here is a guy who I just busted out of a game and he is calling someone else the donk. The best is when you know the player has no idea that the comments he is using to describe you fit him like a glove.

A great example of this happen recently while I was playing a NL Ring game on Absolute Poker.

Everyone either folds or limps to a guy who raises 4x the BB (Player 1), and he gets one call (Player 2).
The flop comes down Q84 of hearts.
Player 1 fires a pot size bet and he gets called.
The turn brings a King of hearts.
Player 1 bets the pot once again, and gets called.
The river is a Jack of clubs.
Player 1 fires the pot once more, and without hesitation, Player 2 moves all in. Player 1 calls. Player 2 looses and goes "on tilt". He curses his opponent's play to no end.

So what did they have?

Player 1 had AT of hearts
Player 2 had KJ off suite, no hearts.

Player 2 makes a comment saying, "this site is rigged, they gave me two runners just for me to push all in" He further commented that his opponent played the hand completely wrong and should have trapped with the nut flush draw.

So let me recap this for you so your not confused or think you misread something:

A guy with AT of hearts bets 4x the BB and is called. He flops the nut flush and bets the pot. Unusual but it worked, he got called. The turn brings a fourth heart Player 1 bets and Player 2 called this rather large bet with a pair of Kings, no hearts, with four to the flush on the board. Player 1 can't be any more obvious that he had the flush when he bet the again on the river; but yet his opponent now making two pair, still with no hearts, pushes all in. Of course Player 1 calls, what else he going to do with the nuts? Then yes, Player 2 criticizes Player 1's play and calls him a donk, then blames the site for cheating him out of his money with two runners!

Player 2's justification for his comments was that Player 1 was betting too high to have the flush, he thought he would have slow played it. But any heart would have beat him on the Turn, his hand couldn't have said "I'm worthless" any louder. Truly amazing ignorance if you ask me.

So what ever happen to Player 2? He ended up loosing the rest of his money on the very next hand. He pushed all in for a rather large amount with AT os. Someone thinking he was on tilt called with A6. The board showed three more 6s and the fireworks began once again. The hand he lost to he gets dealt off suite, and looses to a lesser hand. Great isn't it?

Friends on the Bubble

2006-11-26T20:09:00.000-05:00

Haven't posted much since I been focusing on refining my game. Amazing what you can find when you really study your play and hand histories. I been taking a break from tournaments as I go over my recent plays and in the mean time entertaining cash ring games. Limit Hold'em has been a break even adventure but I am doing well on the No-Limit tables. Any case I wanted to post something to show that I am still alive and end with this, some thing to think about.

You and your best friend have made it to the final table of a large payout event. The first paying position is 7th, there are 8 people left. Your friend has about 4,000 chips left with a blinds 2,ooo / 1,000 and 100 ante. Another at the table has just 1,100 chips left will be automatically all in as the big blind the next hand. You are the chip leader, very healthy, and in the big blind.
The table folds down to your friend who is on the button and pushes all in. The small blind folds and it's to you. You look down and see pocket Kings.

Do you call and most likely make your friend the bubble boy? Or do you fold, let him scoop and hope that the next player's forced all in will knock him out of the tournament so that both you, and your friend, can finish in the money.

Which would you decide?

Tilting for the Holidays!

2006-11-21T22:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I last spoke about a decent win, and that's because... well... it's been a while since I had a decent win. Lately on a variety of poker sites I been completely on tilt. Completely missing my hands or having the best hand on the flop get cracked on the Turn or the River is all too often lately. The weird thing is I only seem to be tilting Online. My live play I am actually on a 5 game winning streak; even my buddy doesn't want to play me heads-up for cash anymore because I busted him out three times. (sorry bud!)

Lately I have a problem with the players on the Internet. It seems I am always against what I call "the ESPN player". That's the guy who watches poker shows on ESPN and thinks that it's the right move to always push all in with crazy cards. In theory this is a great situation, but in reality it seems I have been getting sucked out on more times then what the math percentages should be. In the end I don't blame the software or "bad luck" and I am not going to claim that Internet games are "rigged". I'm just simply stating that I am tilting when it comes to my online play while my live play has never been stronger.

So I look back and try to figure out how I can fix my online tilting problem. It just seems unlogical that I can tear up a live table but then get so messed up when I play online - so what's my problem? I been bubble more more times in the last week then I think I have in my entire career of playing poker. Tonight I created my option, they are to step back and take a break for a while. I am going to spend some time with family during the holiday weekend and then spend some days catching up on reading and analyzing my play. Then, if I must, I will attempt to move into higher levels of play.

It seems there is just too much crazy play on the $20 and under tables, too many amateur players that have no concept on how much to bet and when to let of of cards. You can't make moves on these players and playing fundamentals is just not working to be profitable - it's break-even at best right now. My biggest problem is since I moved off Paradise Poker I been having issues adjusting to the SNG of these other services. The players in Paradise would lay down hands and bet 3-5x the BB pre-flop at the $20 limits. Now I step into the $20 limits on Full Tilt or Stars and I see 15xBB bets and moving all in one flush and straight draws. So I am hoping I can find better players at higher limits so I can have a reasonable game online again. I just can't stand the amateur plays anymore!

So until next time (which may be a few days) take care and good luck out there.

RPT $22 Freeze-out, PokerStars

2006-11-21T22:34:00.000-05:00

Just finished a $22 freeze-out on PokerStars. I finished 32nd which was not a money finish. The tournament was a tough crowd. Seemed every time you raised someone would re-raise a significant amount on top of you. Usually they didn't have much of a hand which really made things difficult when your facing a bet from the raiser and you completely missed your hand but had some drawing options. I was doing well until my AA was cracked by QT giving the player trip Qs on the flop. I managed to hang on for about another hour then pushed in with low pockets and ran into AA, a bad time to push. The only notable event of the tournament is that I did managed to place higher then the world famous poker pro Todd Arnold. Not much to brag about but it gives a meaning for this blog entry.

This Month's 'Bad Plays that Pay'

2006-11-20T23:22:00.000-05:00

You sit around a poker table long enough your bound to see everything. Some times you see things you can't explain, like this play on Full Tilt.

Situation: Early in a multi-table SNG.

Seat 1: (1,665)
Seat 2: (1,305)
Seat 3: (1,140)
Seat 4: (1,470)
Seat 5: Small Blind(1,440)
Seat 6: Big Blind(1,500)
Seat 7: Yours Truly (1,500)
Seat 8: (1,875)
Seat 9: (1,605)

Blinds: 15 / 30

Dealt: Jh Qc

Seat 7 - 9 call
Seat 1 raises to 195
Seat 2 calls 195
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 raises to 720
Seat 5 - 9 fold (expected me to call with QJ Unsuited? Heck no!)
Seat 1 calls 525
Seat 2 raises 1,245
Seat 4 raises to 1,470 and is all in
Seat 1 raises to 1,665 and is all in
Seat 2 calls 60 and is all in

Commentary: Okay, let's look at what happen here. Many people have limped into the pot showing no signs of strength and Seat 1 takes advantage of that and does a massive raise of 195 chips. Seat 2 calls the massive raise only to see a re-raise to an ungodly amount of 720 chips. Seat 1 calls the raise showing he must have some sort of strong hand but, Seat 2 re-raises again to 1,245 chips and moves all in. The remaining players go all in as well and we finally see a Flop. Now with this type of action you got to wonder what they are holding.

If you thought wired Aces or Kings your wrong.

So it must be low royalty; Queens, Jacks, and Slick right? You'd be wrong again.

How about [Tc Ts] vs. [Ks Qd] vs. [5c 3c] <- Yes, you read that last set right.

Let's look at it again for pure entertainment value shall we?

Seat 7 - 9 call
Tc Ts raises to 195
Ks Qd calls 195
Seat 3 folds
5c 3c raises to 720
Seat 5 - 9 fold (Nope, I still didn't call it!)
Tc Ts calls 525
Ks Qd raises 1,245
5c 3c raises to 1,470 and is all in
Tc Ts raises to 1,665 and is all in
Ks Qd calls 60 and is all in

Amazing isn't it? Now who won...

Yup, 5c 3c hit the wheel and sucked out. Our table was stunned for a very, very long time.