Matt's Post Day 4 E-mail

Here's what Matt had to day after day 4:

I've heard that some of you are following the action online. That's pretty cool. I actually called Dave to tell him about a hand I was involved in, and before I could tell him about it, he told me he had read the hand online. Pretty cool.

So yes, I am still alive. We are down to 189 players. I am guaranteed $38,600.

The bad news is that I did not make too much forward progress in my chip count. I ended the day with 308,000, and the average stack right now is about 750,000. That means that I have my work seriously cut out for me tomorrow. But as I keep telling myself, anything can happen as longas I'm still in.

I was down as far as $200,000 but then made some upward progress from there.

I also moved all-in at one point with A-K on a flop of 10-5-3. Thankfully I was not called.

The sickest hand (which is the one that was broadcast on www.pokernews.com) went as follows. With the blinds at 4,000-8,000, the first player made it 20,000 to go. Three people called, which was really unusual, since our table wasn't typically loose. When it got to me in the small blind, I found pocket queens. There was already over 90,000 in the pot, and I felt that the only player I really had to worry about was maybe the original raiser, or maybe the first guy that called him. Anyway, I raised to 140,000. When it got back to the first raiser, he immediately looked at me and said, "How much does he have left? 240,000? Ok, I'm all in." The next guy folded what he said was pocket jacks. The next guy calls with what turned out to be ace-king. The next guy folded, and I just couldn't see how I could call in that spot. I was 90% sure he had aces, or else I figured he had to have at least pocket kings to move in so quickly. At any rate, I folded, at which point he turns up king-queen offsuit. It was a sick and bizarre play, and the worst part is that it cost me a HUGE pot. If he folds instead of making that wacky play, I'm probably getting called by the jacks and the ace-king, and given that the board never had a card higher than nine, I could easily have gotten up to 900,000 from that hand. Instead, I was down to 240,000 and fighting for my life. In fact, I still am. We're coming back to a brief period of 5K-10K blinds, and then it goes up from there.

I've said it four times, so I might as well say it a fifth: I'm clearly an underdog to make it through tomorrow. I will need to get very lucky and catch some cards, or make some plays against some really good players, or else I might not be around very long. But I've made it this far, so who the hell knows, right?

Play starts at noon tomorrow. They have running updates on www.pokernews.com and I think also on www.worldseriesofpoker.com for anyone who is interested.

If I somehow make it through, then we will be looking at some REAL money. That, as Dave says, would be some shit.



Good luck Matt!

Matt Still Alive at the WSOP!

Matt continues to do his thing at the main event of the WSOP. At the end of Day 4 there are 189 players remaining and Matt has about 300,000 in chips. The average stack is a little over 700,000 so Matt has a little work to do. But when you consider that when the players come back blinds will be 5000/10,000 with a 1,000 ante for another 40 minutes (for some reason they decided to stop play early and right in the middle of a level - weird) and then go to 6,000/12,000 with a 2,000 ante for 2 hours he really has enough that he's no where near desperation mode.

Right now Matt is guarenteed a payout of at least $38,600 ($3,860 for me! Yay!). Moving up to 157th or better will put another $3,200 onto that and then the pay jumps start getting big and more frequent. 99th is $51,466 and 90th is $64,333. I won't even go beyond that since my keyboard will probably short out from all the drool.

Also of note I'm being a very lame friend and not making the trip out to Vegas tomorrow. I told everyone including Matt that I'd make the trip if he made it through day 4, but I've since had the realization that I'm still Vegased out from the 9 days I spent there a few weeks ago. If he makes in through tomorrow I'm going to have to go no matter how I feel.

Keep up the good work Matt!

The End of Day 3 for Matt

Here's what Matt had to say in his latest e-mail:

We are in the money! We got there at about 11:30 PM tonight, and I just finished play at about 2:30 AM. I believe we are down to about 480 players, and I think I am guaranteed about $27,000, but I'm not sure of the exact numbers. You should go to www.worldseriesofpoker.com to check the latest, since I am too tired to do that now.

I have $268,000 in chips. The average stack is about $285,000 so I am slightly below average but doing fine. We are coming back to blinds of $2,500-$5,000 with a $500 ante, so it will be fast. In other words, we will probably play down from 480 players to about 100. As I've said every day, I am definitely not a favorite to make it through all of Day Four. But if I can do it, that would certainly be sweet.

I had Brandon Cantu at my table for most of the day, who is probably the best tournament player in the world that no one has heard of. He played outstanding, and made it very difficult to make any moves or get out of line. I also had Jeremy Joseph, the chip leader with $1.6 million at my table, so I'm just happy that we get to re-draw tomorrow. I'll take my chances against a new lineup.

Two hands of note. When I had about 125,000, I was lucky enough to pick up pocket aces and have someone else find pocket kings. We got all the money in, and the aces held up. That was pretty huge, and assured me that I would finish in the money.

The second hand was a little sicker, near the very end of the night. With blinds of $2,000-$4,000 I made it $14,000 with pocket queens under-the-gun. A pretty strong player called and Cantu called, and they both had position on me. The flop came K-8-3. I made up my mind that I was going to check-raise Cantu. However, the player between us came out with a $30,000 bet. Cantu folded, and for whatever reason I decided that I was going to take my stand there. I pushed all-in for about $160,000. He thought and thought and said, "I think we have the same hand." He kept saying, "I think we have the same hand," which told me that he had A-K and that I was in very deep shit when he called. In fact, I couldn't see how he would fold. But remarkably, he decided in the end that I must have had pocket aces the way I played it, and he threw it away. Phew. That could have been the end, but instead I get to come back and take another shot.

I'm tired, but feeling pretty good. It's nice to think that I have roughly a 1-in-500 chance of being the next World Champion. It's way too early to be thinking like that, but on the other hand, it's hard not to.

Thanks again to Jeremy for his constant support at the Rio, and to Alan for giving me rides even at 2 in the morning.

Play starts at 1 PM tomorrow (or I guess it's today). I'll let you know how it goes. Best of luck to all of us.

Regards,
Matt


Go get those bastards Matt! If he makes it through today I think I'm going to make an emergency trip to Vegas!

Matt in the Money!

Matt has done his thing and made it to the money in the main event! About 20 minutes after I put up my last post Matt called to say he'd won a few pots and was up to about 150,000! This was great news.

He meandered through the day going up to about 175,000 and then back down to 125,000 before picking up AA vs KK and doubling up with about 725 players left!

It took forever for the players to go from 700 down to the magic number of 666 remaining players. Just after making the money Matt had 237,000 chips and was guaranteed a pay day of $21,230! Of course only 37% of that is going to Matt since he sold off a good chunk of his action before the tournament.

For those of you who are wondering what the other payouts look like here they are:

1st $9,119,517
2nd $5,790,024
3rd $4,503,352
4th $3,763,515
5th $3,088,012
6th $2,412,510
7th $1,769,174
8th $1,286,672
9th $900,670
10-12th $591,869
13-15th $463,201
16-18th $334,534
19-27th $257,334
28-36th $193,000
37-45th $154,400
46-54th $135,100
55-63rd $115,800
64-72nd $96,500
73-81st $77,200
82-90th $64,333
91-99th $51,466
100-162nd $41,816
163-225th $38,600
226-288th $35,383
289-351st $32,166
352-414th $28,950
415-477th $27,020
478-540th $25,090
541-603rd $23,160
604-666th $21,230


For those of you who are wondering what my 10% of the action would be worth on the open market the 237,000 chips that Mat has are .173% of the chips in play and the total prize pool is $64,333,600 so his chips are worth $111,297 and my 10% is worth about $11,000. Of course if that expectation might not be realized so if there are any buyers out there I'll give up my piece for $10,000!The most exciting part is there is about a 1 in 650 chance of me taking home close to $1,000,000. Think about that for a second. I've had plenty of 1 in 1,000 shots come through for me before so I'm really starting to dream big here!

Good luck Matt!

Matt at the WSOP

My friend Matt Lessinger has made it through day 1 and day 2 at the WSOP main event! Here's the e-mail he sent me summing up the conclusion of day 2 action:

Hi all,

OK, two days down. I made it past Day Two, and I start Day Three in about half an hour. Yesterday was a real struggle, including (as I told Dave in a phone call at the break) playing at what I consider to be the toughest table of players I've ever faced. I am very happy to draw for a new table today and take my chances with some new opponents.

I hovered between 30,000 and 50,000 for most of the day, but right near the end, I had a hand that worked out well. I picked up two black aces. Someone raised to 3,200, I made it 8,000, and he called. The flop came K-Q-3 all diamonds. He checked, and I bet 12,000, which basically committed me to the pot, since I had only about another 25,000 left. He sat and thought for a while, and he looked like he was really struggling with what to do. I didn't think it was an act. Finally he shrugged and said, "OK, I'm all in." I thought briefly, but figured that he most likely hand was A-K with the ace of diamonds, and I had to go with my aces. I called, and was thrilled to see that he had A-K with the ace of hearts, so the only thing that could save him was one of the two remaining kings. They didn't come, so I doubled up to about 90,000 in chips.

As it turns out, I didn't pick up a single hand in the last 45 minutes that followed, so I ended Day Two with 82,000 in chips. That's slightly below average, and slightly below my goal of 100K going into the day, but all-in-all I'm fine with it.

There are about 1,350 players left, and the top 666 make it into the money. At this point, realistically my chances of finishing in the money are about 40%. In order to do it, I need to make it through all of today, and with the blinds starting at 800-1,600 and going up from there, I will obviously need to win some decent pots to make it through the day. But so far so good, and I'll try to continue the upward movement.

Thanks again to Jeremy for making the trek to the Rio to give his support each day. Thanks to Alan for going clothes shopping for me at 1 AM when I realized I had no clothes left for today's tournament. And thanks to Timmy for stopping by on his way out of town.

I'll let you know how today went. Hopefully we'll all have a little more money in our pockets at that time.

Regards,
Matt


Just a reminder that I have 10% of his action! 666th place pays $21,000 so it will be a great pay day for us both if he can make it that far. You can check out other details of the main event at www.pokerpages.com. I'll put up a post when he goes broke or makes the money.

Double FPP Recap

Day 6 of the Pokerstars double point promotion was a total disaster. I ended up losing about $2,600 and I didn’t make it to my daily goal of 10,000 points.

The day started off poorly, but it was a slow drain. I found myself down $1,000 after a few hours, but wasn’t feeling too bad about it. I was losing, but it was a combination of not much in the way of good cards for me and plenty of good cards for my opponents. That kind of losing is easy for me to handle.

The type of losing that I have trouble with is when I’m getting great cards, making big hands and losing to garbage hands that miraculously connect with the board cards. Or when people are bluffing on flop and the turn and I’ve decided to call them down with a marginal hand and then they improve just enough to beat me on the end.

For example there was a hand where I raised with 88 and got called by the big blind who had 97. The flop was K 5 3, he checked I bet and he called with no pair and no draw. The turn was a 2 and he check raised me with no pair and no draw and then the river came a 9 and he bet and I called. There were plenty of other hands in a short span that had a similar script.

As a result I went from irritated to angry to super duper mega pissed off over the course of about 20 minutes. During that span I played about 250 hands, took 26 to the showdown and lost 20 of them (normally I’d expect to win about 15 of those hands instead of 5). The thing that’s critical about pots at showdown is they are almost never small pots. In the games I’m playing in you can just about always expect a raise before the flop and at least one bet on every betting round. So in a $10/$20 game that’s a pot size of at least $140. If I win 15 of those pots instead of 5 I’ve got at least another $1,400. Smartly I decided in a fairly reasonable amount of time that I was in no state of mind to keep playing and quit for the day.

While the day was a real disaster, the week was a moderate success. Luckily since I’d overshot in point production on the early days of the week even though I didn’t make it to 10,000 on the last day I did manage to surpass my goal of 60,000 points in the 6days. And although I lost about $600 in the actual play I still made a few grand as a result of the insane number of points I earned. I took the past two days off and I'm ready to get back on the horse tomorrow.

In other news my good friend Matt Lessinger has made it through day 1 at the WSOP main event! There were a total of 6,844 entrants at this years main event who all in one way or another put up $10,000 to play. Given the massive number of players the first day of play was split into four groups who played on four different days. Matt played on Day 1D (which was Sunday, with Saturday being 1C, Friday being 1B and Thursday being 1A) and of the 2,461 players who started that day 1352 made it through. After starting with 20,000 chips Matt was up to about 45,000 at the end of his first day of play. Today was day 2A where everyone who survived on day 1A and 1B came back for their second day of action. Matt's second day will be tomorrow (Wednesday). Anyone who makes it through day 2A and 2B will be back on Thursday and the players who make it about half way through that day will be in the money. Good luck Matt!

Halfway to Glory

During my double FPP extravaganza I've crossed over the 500,000 point mark for the year meaning I'm a little more than half way home! In fact at the end of Sunday in order to be on pace I need to be at 513,661. I expect for the first time since January 1st I'm going to be on pace to make my goal.

In the five days I've played so far I've managed at least 10,200 points a day and I'm ahead about $2,000 in actual game play. With only one more day left I plan to have my biggest production day ever and then take a few days off! Looking back Sunday will be the 22nd day in a row that I've worked! But since I've made about $12,000 in that time I guess it's been worth it.

2X FPP's Day 2 & 3

So far this double points stuff has been great! On day 2 I managed 10.600 points and a moderate but not insignificant profit of $225.

Today I blew it out with a profit of $1,800 to go along with 10,200 points. Amazingly I felt like I was getting my ass kicked all day, but I had a few 10 minute bursts where I got crazy hot and at the end of the day it all added up to a nice win.

So far in 3 days I've put 32,000 points toward my year end goal. That's the eqivalent of about 2 weeks of moderate effort. It's also generated FPPs worth $1,682 to go along with my $3,000 in winnings. While the effort required has been draining, so far it's completely worth it. This is shaping up to be a very profitable week!

WCOOP 2008!!!

They announced the schedule for the World Championship of Oniline Poker (WCOOP) today. Last year there were 23 events up from 18 the year before. This year there are going to be 33 events!

In addition to ramping up the number of events they've added a few HUGE buy in events. There's a $10,000 NL hold em, a $10,000 HORSE event and an insane $25,000 heads up matches tournament! They've guatanteed a 1.6 million dollar prize pool for the $25K which means they'll need at least 64 players. A tall order for the biggest buy in event in online poker history!

Of course there are a slew of $215, $320, and $530 events that I plan on playing. At first glance I think I'm going to be playing at least 15 events this year. More to come on the WCOOP as we get a little nearer to the start date of Sept 5th.

If you want to see the full schedule here it is http://www.pokerstars.com/wcoop/

Quick Update (2X FPPs Day 1)

I managed to play more hands today than I've ever played in one day before. I played 5,046 hands today and earned about 11,200 points (I played a mix of four $5/$10 games and two $10/$20 games). If I could earn this many points whenever I wanted it would only take me 89 working days to make my yearly goal of 1,000,000.

Those points translate into 39,200 FPPs which are worth $589. Not bad for one days effort. I also made just over $1,000 in actual winnings so it was nothing short of a great start to my week. I'm certainly tired, but feeling a little better than I expected. It's looking like this double FPP madness is going to take me all the way to back on pace for the year!

My goal tomorrow is to play at least 5,047 hands!