They Say Poker is All Luck...

About 25% of the time I tell people I'm a professional poker player they do all but tell me I'm a liar. They know that you can't win at gambling. If it involves cards it must be all luck.

So I won the nightly $109 HORSE tournament AGAIN! Another $2,000 in the Huff coffers baby! This makes 8 attempts at $109 HORSE tournaments with between 55 and 72 players. I have 3 1sts and a 6th in those 8 attempts.

This was another final table where it wasn't even close. I simply kicked everyone's ass. I came to the final table in 3rd place when we were in the Stud round. There were two short stacks who went down the tubes quickly. During the Stud Hi-Lo I got great cards and found myself in first place playing 4 handed as we switched to Hold'em. I used my expertise in short handed limit hold 'em to take out two of my remaining opponents and dropped the last villain 5 hands into the Omaha.

This was another great victory and it's getting harder and harder to stop working early and skip that 6:45 HORSE tournament!

Ten Tournaments

Today I played 10 tournaments with buy ins totaling $2,010. Here's what I played and where I finished (money finishes are in bold):

$109 Pot Limit Hold em 6 handed 47 of 54
$55 NL hold 'em 1671 of 1971
$55 NL hold 'em with 1 rebuy and 1 add on 319 of 459
$215 Sunday Million 708 of 7557
$530 Sunday $500K Guarantee NL hold 'em 341 of 993
109 NL hold 'em 771 of 1062
$109 with rebuys 375 of 477
$215 HORSE 104 of 240
$33 NL hold 'em 6 handed with rebuys 19 of 252
$215 Sunday Second chance NL Hold 'em 40 of 1338

Today is a great example of why it would be super tough to play multitables for a living. I had three money finishes in ten tournaments and I still lost $837!!! You really have to make a final table to make any money.

I was close to something sweet in the $215 Sunday Second Chance which was the last tournament I went broke in. There was a guy at my table raising 75% of hands. So with blinds of 2,000/4,000 I decided to see a flop in the big blind with K2 of diamonds after he made it 10,000 to go. I had about 70,000 total and I only had to risk 6,000 when the pot (including the antes) had close to 20,000 in it already. Furthermore I was 100% sure that my opponent would bet the flop no matter what came down so if I hit big I knew there would be a very juicy pot. When the flop showed up Q 8 5 with two diamonds I decided to check raise semi bluff all in.

Of course my opponent bet after I checked. He fired out 20,000 and I moved all in for my remaining 60,000. I was hoping he would fold, but he instantly called me with K8, I missed the diamonds and I was out. Winning that pot would have put me somewhere around 10th place with 39 players left. 18th paid $1,650, 12th was $2,850, 7th was $9,750, and 1st was $54,480.

When I get close like this I always tell myself to keep giving myself chances and I'll close out one of these big ones sometime soon. With two finishes in the top 10% and one in the top 3% in only 10 tournaments I have to feel pretty good about my performance even if I didn't win any money. I really feel like I'm playing great poker lately and I'm hoping I can catch the few breaks I need to do something special in the WCOOP which starts a week from Friday!

More Comment Responses

Here are two comments I got on my last post:

Dave
Congrats on your recent cashings, I've been reading your blog for a couple of years now, I find your opinions both intresting and imformative, What name do you play under ???, would like to quietly rail you sometime..!, Keep up the good work matey, onwards and upwards and gl with the Fpp's.
Dave from London.

It's always great to hear that people I don't even know are following my progress and rooting for me! My username on pokerstars is acesedai. Hopefully I'll be at a final table when you watch!

Here's the second comment:

Thanks for the response (the complexity of the HORSE issue is turning out to be fascinating). In any case, I've never heard you say anything like this when it comes to poker: "..I suspect I'd get my ass handed to me against top notch players in Omaha for example."

And so I have another question! Is it worth sharpening up your Omaha game, or trying to tune up your HORSE game, because there are HORSE games that are out there for such insane amounts of money? If not, why not? Jenn



Let me start by saying that I may have exaggerated when I said I'd get my ass handed to me against top notch Omaha players. I know enough and am good enough that I wouldn't get totally blasted. The problem is I've probably only played 25,000 hands of Omaha in my entire life. Whereas I've played over 2,000,000 hands of hold'em. In poker experience is a huge deal and I simply haven't had enough to compete with players who know all the ins and outs.

Actually this is all supposition since I've never played Omaha for big money. Maybe I'd find that I'm better than I think!

As far as trying to improve so I can play the super duper big HORSE games I have to say they are so far out of my comfort zone in terms of the amount of money that I couldn't see playing them even if I knew I was the best player. In the $200/$400 game just calling a hand to the end in one of the stud based games with no raising will cost you $1,600. With heavy raising you could easily put $4,000 in on one pot. I'm a few years away from being emotionally ready to handle those kind of swings.

If I want to play for more money I can play $50/$100 hold'em or bigger tournaments or whatever. There are tons of ways I can get more dollars into play if I want to. One of the things that has made me a successful pro is I've moved up the limits very gradually. As my skills have improved I've played for bigger stakes, but I haven't taken too many huge risks.

With that said I'm going to play a dozen multitable tournaments with buy ins totaling about $2,500 today! Hopefully I can take at least one deep.

A HORSE Comment Response

After my last post about my most recent ass kicking playing HORSE my sister posted the following comment:

Not to ask you to toot your own horn, but do you think your strength at HORSE is due to the fact that not many people are good at all the different types of games and able to switch back and forth between them? If so, could you make a name for yourself as Dave Huff, HORSE Champion? (That sounds like a taunt when I say it that way, and considering the source.....But it's actually a serious question.)

I certainly think it's a big advantage that I'm good at all of the games. Back in the days when I was a prop player at the Oaks Club I had to play Omaha and 7 card stud on a daily basis and got pretty good at both. Razz seems to come very natually to me and while stud Hi-Lo is my worst of the 5 games I have read a book about it which I'm sure is more than many of my opponents can say.

It's been obvious to me in these past few tournaments that when we switch games some of the players go from formidale opponents to having no clue. Most players seem to be comfortable with either the flop games (the H and the O) or the stud based games (the R, S, and E). It's actually tough to gain expereince in the stud based games these days since there are very few cash games for any kind of significant money and almost no tournaments.

I think this is mostly because in the stud based games you have to remember a bunch of cards that have come and gone and it's hard to do that playing many games at a time. As a result anyone who wants to play more than 2 or 3 games at once is naturally going to gravitate to flop games.

Another thing that I think has led to some of my success is HORSE tournaments are limit. This means that no one hand is going to do you in early on and it's more a sum of many small decisions rather than a few big ones that create my advantage.

Yet another thing that allowed me to win outright is my vast final table experience. I've played at hundreds of final tables. One more where 1st place is $2,000 isn't anything to take me off my game or make me nervous. On the other hand moving up a spot or two might be a big deal to my opponents (as it is for me when first place is $50,000 or $500,000).

As far as making a name for myself goes there are two problems. First and foremost there really aren't that many HORSE tournaments out there. To give you an idea, at this years WCOOP there are 17 hold'em events and 2 HORSE events (and one of those has a $10,000 buy in!!!) As another example, in the next hour on Pokerstars there are 18 tournaments starting: 15 are hold'em, two are Omaha and one is 7 card stud. By contrast there are only 4 HORSE tournaments in the next 13 hours and the biggest one has a $20 buy in.

The second problem is when you start playing for big bucks everyone knows how to play all the games at the highest level. While I feel like I can play Hold'em against the best players in the world and at least hold my own, I suspect I'd get my ass handed to me against top notch players in Omaha for example.

Behind the WSOP main event and maybe the $25,000 WPT championship the next most important tournament in the world is the $50,000 HORSE tournament at the WSOP (an event that's only 3 years old). Also the biggest cash game in the world which is a $4,000/$8,000 game at the Bellagio is basically HORSE with one or two other games mixed in.

You'll notice that the main point here is when you can find HORSE it's usually for very little money or insane amounts of money. On pokerstars there's typically a $5/$10game going and a $200/$400 game going. I could beat the shit our of the $5/$10 game and win enough for a nice dinner or lose enough money to buy a nice car in the $200/$400 game.

Since my last post I've played the $109 HORSE tournament on pokerstars twice: once finishing 6th out of 62 which paid close to $500 and then finishing dead last in a field of 64! Ha! That's poker!

I'm going to keep my eye out for HORSE opportunities and I'm certainly stoaked about the $215 HORSE event in the WCOOP. I think I have about 8 WCOOP cashes and my deepest finish came in the $215 HORSE in 2006 if I remember correctly.

Thanks for the comment!!!

Winning Leads to More Winning!

I played a ton of poker today. I managed 3,000 hands of 6 handed limit hold'em and played a dozen multitable tournaments. I won about $1,000 in the cash games, but I dropped $400 on one $55 with rebuys tournament and had a bunch of other duds in the morning. But I started 6 tournaments between 5 and 7 pm and had two cashes. The first cash wasn't super significant coming just into the money in a $109 NL tournament.

The second cash was much more interesting and came in a $109 HORSE tournament. We started with 56 players and since it only paid 6 spots the top 6 places looked very similar to those in the HORSE tournament I won the other day. More importantly the results were similar...I won again!

This time there wasn't nearly as much drama. I was in the middle of the pack when we made the final table playing Stud Hi-Lo, but once we switched to hold em I picked up a ton of chips with relentless raising. This tournament only had 12 minute limits so we switched games much more quickly. Two players went down in the hold 'em followed by three more in the Omaha. By the time we went to Razz, I had twice as many chips as my two remaining opponents combined. 10 quick hands later it was over.

First place paid $2,060! Apparently I kick ass at HORSE! This $109 tournament goes off every day at 6:45 and I may have to start planning my schedule to play it more frequently!

Two Solid Finishes

I came back from vacation on August 12th ready to get back into my normal poker routine. I played a little on vacation, but it wasn't the type of play that generates many points. In fact I spent most of my time playing multitables, and oddly enough limit Omaha cash games and Razz (7-card stud where the worst hand wins) cash games. After a while I was feeling so good about my Razz play that I played about 250 hands of $30/$60 and won about $1,000!

Many people would say that Razz is one of the most boring games in the poker world, but I enjoy it. The thing I like about it most is there are so many situations that come up where you can be 100% sure that you have the best hand. For example after 3 cards if you have 3 cards 7 and below and someone is showing an up card 8 or higher you're ahead. On the next card even if they catch a 2 if you hit another good card you know for sure you're still ahead.

One thing people hate is when they start off with 3 or 4 great low cards and then catch a bunch of face cards. While this can be frustrating when it happens to me, I love it when it happens to my opponents. Sometimes weak players get so frustrated that they continue in a hand where they are totally dead just because they had a good hand on third street.

So with all that in mind, on Friday night I decided to play a $320 Razz tournament on Full tilt. They are in the midst of running a series of big tournaments much like the WCOOP (only much less significant and prestigious) which is the only reason they were able to run a $320 Razz tournament and get more than 3 people to sign up (normally $20is about the biggest Razz tournaments get and even then there's usually a very small field).

I'd already played a full day and the start time for the tournament was 6 pm. But since this type of tournament only comes along once every few months I decided to sit on the couch with my laptop, have a glass of wine, watch some Olympics and give it a go. I also jumped into "The Nightly Hundred Grand" on pokerstars which is a $162 tournament with a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool. Even though it had been a long day, I couldn't bring myself to play just one game at a time.

So after all that Razz talk I have to tell you that the Razz tournament was a total bust! I went broke about half way through that one, but I made the final table in the $162 tournament!

We started that tournament with about 750 players and I struggled for the first few hours. I was never in major trouble, but I never had a comfortable stack either. The tournament paid 90 spots and when we made the money I had about half of average. From that point on I played great in the small pots and poorly in the big ones. But sometimes you get lucky.

I got all my chips in when I was totally dominated at least 4 times that I can remember. The first one was just after we made the money. A player from middle position made a standard raise and I moved all in from the button with AT suited. I got called by AK and figured I was done. But I flopped a ten and doubled up.

When we were down to about 45 players I managed to get about 2/3 of my chips in with AJ vs KK. I flopped a J and turned another one giving my stack a nice boost.

A little later I once again had ATs against AK. The flop came AT2 and I doubled up again.

After all this great luck I was in good shape as we made the final table. 9th place paid about $1,500 so I was already looking at a nice score, but of course I had my eye on the $20,000 first place prize.

Unusually, everyone at the final table was very even in chips. In fact the chip leader only had twice as many chips as the player in 9th place! Normally when you make the final table there are a few short stacks and everyone plays pretty conservatively until they go broke since every spot you move up is big bucks. In this case 8th place paid $2,400 and I was happy to see the first person go broke after a very long half hour of final table play.

The player who finished in 8th place went broke and soon after I had my 4th miracle of the day. I was running a little short on chips and I moved all in with 44. I got called by QQ and figured I was done in 7th. The flop came 6 6 5 the turn was a 7 and the river was an 8 making me a straight! I was back baby!

That poor fellow soon went broke in 7th and took home $3,500 for his efforts. By this time is was well after midnight, and despite the fact that I'd started playing that day about 9 in the morning I was feeling surprisingly fresh.

We lost the 6th place finisher who got paid $4,600 and then we spent a long time playing 5 handed. We were all still pretty even and based on what I'd seen I liked my chances against my opposition. At that point two players got all their chips in: one with TT and the other with 33. The tens held up and I was happy to see the player with 33 get knocked down to about 45,000 chips. The blinds were 5,000/10,000 the rest of us all had more than 300,000 and I figured he'd be done in a hurry. Sadly I was wrong.

First he moved in with A5 and I called him out of the big blind with QT. He flopped an ace and was up to around 100,000 while I was down from about 350,000 to 300,000. A few hands later he moved all in with 99 and I called him with AQ. After no help for me we both had around 200,000. A few rounds later he moved all in from the button and I found myself with 66 in the big blind.

While his other all ins had been pretty standard moves, now that he had more chips moving all in was really excessive. I knew if he had a big hand he'd never put in all of his chips that way. If either of his cards was a 2,3,4,5, or 6 (18 of the 50 cards left in the deck) I be about 70% to win.

After some thought I decided to call and he turned over K5s which was just the kind of hand I hoped he'd have. Sadly the flop came with a K and I was done. The good news is I got paid $5,700 for 5th place!!! YAY!

One of the best things about winning is it usually leads to more winning. On Saturday I sat down feeling like even if I had a terrible day and lost a few thousand it would be ok. As a result I was feeling very relaxed and confident.

When I logged on to pokerstars about 9:30 in the morning I saw that a special tournament was going off at 10. They were running a $109 HORSE multitable as a test run for the structure they're going to use in the $10,000 HORSE event at this years WCOOP. This meant a looooooong tournament since we started with 25,000 chips and 30 minute levels. But since I was just starting play I figured I'd have the energy to play it all day if I had to.

For those of you who don't know HORSE is a combination of 5 forms of poker: (H)old 'em, (O)maha, (R)azz, 7 card (S)tud and Stud (E)ight or better (stud Hi-Lo split). We played each game in that order for 30 minutes and every time we switched to a new game the stakes increased slightly.

The thing I like about HORSE is I feel like I'm really good at all 5 games. Also having 5 different forms of poker adds significantly to the complexity of a tournament and any time you can make it more complicated it favors the stronger player. Stud Hi-Lo is probably my weakest of the 5 games, but I feel like there are very few experts in that game and even though it's my worst game I'm still way better than most of my opponents.

We started with 72 players and after about 7 hours I found myself in 3rd place as we started play at the 8 handed final table. Since this was a much smaller tournament that the one I described above the payouts weren't as exciting, but they were still significant. 8th place paid $360 and this time we did have a few short stacks who quickly went broke.

We started the final table playing Omaha and I struggled a little, but once we got the the Razz I started kicking major ass. By the time the half hour of Razz was over we were down to 5 and I was in first. During the half hour of 7 card stud I built my lead. At the end of that half hour while we were still playing 5 handed, but I had as many chips as all of my opponents combined!

In the Stud Hi-Lo I dropped the hammer and busted three of my 4 opponents leaving one player left. I had about 1.5 million chips and he had 200,000. 2nd place paid $1,440 and 1st was $2,160 so we were playing heads up for a little over $700.

I figured since we were going back to hold'em soon I'd make quick work of my last opponent and call it a day. But I was in for much more of a battle. We were playing FAST. I'm talking 5 or 6 hands a minute fast. And we played about 10 minutes of Stud Hi-Lo, the whole way through the half hour of hold 'em and into the Omaha before we were done. This was a TON of hands.

As soon as we started the hold-em my opponent started picking up a ton of great hands. He got AA at least 3 times and kept making 2 pair with garbage hands. Soon we were even and at one point he took the lead with about 1,000,000 chips to my 700,000 chips. That was only for a moment and I took the lead right back. It seemed like I'd get him down to 400,000 and then he'd always climb back up.

We stated the Omaha about even, but he clearly had no clue how to play heads up Omaha and I blew him out of the water in no time. I knew I was having a good run, but wasn't really looking at our stacks. Then all of a sudden I won a HUGE pot and saw he was down to 40,000. The next hand it was over.

I know I won much more money in the hold'em tournament, but there's something very special about finishing in 1st. Also I love doing well in HORSE tournaments. It makes me feel like a very well rounded player. It's certainly been a sweet two days!

Also my sister in law and avid blog reader Kristen was here and took 5% of my action in the HORSE. It was nice to be able to shoot her a $100 bill and share some profits for once!

More Battle of the Planets!

As of my last post I'd played 63 tournaments of a 100 tournament block in the $50-$99 division of the battle of the planets. On Friday, the day I left town for vacation, I woke up and played the remaining 37 tournaments I needed to complete my block. And I kicked some MAJOR ass.

Over the course of the 100 tournaments I finished in 1st 25 times! Every time I found myself in the money it seemed like I won. I ended up with 1566 points which was good for second place in the High Orbit leader board and a prize of $700! I also finished in 13th on the low orbit leader board (which is for blocks of 20) which was good for $80.

Of course I did make about $2,500 in the actual play of the 100 tournaments so that bonus money wasn't super significant, but it felt really sweet to have a high place finish.

Wasting time...sort of.

I've sort of been screwing around lately poker wise. While I've put in a few thousand hands of my normal 6 handed cash games in the past week, I've been spending most of my time playing tournaments.

This week I've been playing a mix of multitables and SNGs. I haven't managed any final tables, but I have finished in the top 20 in 3 tournaments with 500 entrants or more. Of course I can bring some pride and a few bucks away from those results, but it's mostly frustrating to be just short of winning a few grand for a final table appearance or a five digit first place payday.

After last weeks attempt to do well on the Battle of the Planets SNG leader board I realized I missed playing single table tournaments a little. So while I was mixing it up in the multitables I was also seeing if I could do anything in this weeks battle of the planets. After a strong start and then a small reversal in the $100+ division I wasn't able to book a big number of points in the "low orbit" leader board (which counts blocks of 20 tournaments) and after about 80 tournaments I gave up on scoring in the top 10 in the "high orbit" leaderboard (which measures blocks of 100 tournaments).

In the $50-$99 division I had some better success. I had one block of 20 tournaments where after 18 SNGs I had EIGHT first and two second place finishes (it's some serious shit for tournaments that start with 9 players to have that many top finishes). With two tournaments left to go I was in a spot where all I needed was one 3rd place finish to move into 3rd place on the low orbit leaderboard (it would have taken two firsts to move into first overall). Instead I got robbed. In BOTH of my remaining tournaments I was in first chip position with five players left. In one I lost 90% of my chips with TT to AK and in the other I lost KK to 44 in a very similar situation. I couldn't work any magic with my super short stacks and found myself stuck in 9th on the low orbit leader board. With a few days left in the week I don't think there's any way I can hang on to a top ten spot.

But I still have a shot a the high orbit leaderboard in the $50-$99 division. After 63tournaments I have 900 points (you get 45 for a 1st, 27 for a second and 18 for a third). I need over 1,400 to be in the top 5, over 1,500 to be in the top 3 and 1,693 to be in first if you look at the current standings. Right now I'm on pace to finish with 1,428 which I think would be good for somewhere in the 6th or 7th range once the week is over. But if I can close strong I have a shot at a top 2 or 3 spot. 1st pays $1,000, 2nd $700, 3rd $500 and every place in the top 15 pays something ($80 is the bottom prize).

To be honest this competition isn't really about the money. Of course that's nice and if there wasn't any money I wouldn't go for it. But mostly I want the thrill of victory! I can say for sure that in the long run I'd be better off dollar wise just playing my 6 handed cash games. But, I am a pretty damn good SNG player and I want to take down that $1,000 for first on one of these leaderboards!

I'm off on vacation to the east coast for the next week or so and while I expect to play a little, I don't expect to post about it unless something major happens.

Don't forget the WCOOP starts September 5th! This will be right about the time I clear my $6,000 milestone bonus so I'm going to go big!

Two Tournament Victories!

I've been playing about half a dozen multitables a day for the past week or so and I've had some solid success. It's been a mix of medium buy in tournaments with lots of players and big prizes and some small buy in tournaments with fewer players.

I actually managed to win two of the latter! One of my victories came yesterday in a $55 NL tournament with 6 handed tables and about 150 entrants. I dominated the final table and took home about $2,000 for my first place finish.

The other came today in a $22 with one rebuy tournament today. We started with 198 players and I ended up on top. 1st only paid about $1,300 but it came with the thrill of victory!

Also while I was playing in the $55 tournament I mentioned above I finished 4th in an $22 with unlimited rebuys tournament that started with about 250 players. That cash paid just under $1,500!

It's been a great two days! I've had a few other cashes as well and have been playing some of the best poker I can remember ever playing. This all bodes well for the WCOOP which will be starting in about 5 weeks.

Battle of the Planets!

Sounds dramatic doesn't it? Battle of the Planets is what Pokerstars calls their weekly SNG leader board. It really pisses me off that as soon as I stopped playing single table tournaments they created a leader board for them! Bastards!

This week as part of their 2X promotion Pokerstars doubled all the prizes on the Battle of the Planets. As a result I decided to take a little shot at the leader boards to see how I would do.

The leader boards are split into 8 buy in levels with the lowest being Mercury at $1-$3 and the highest being Jupiter at $300+. I decided to focus my attention the $50-$100 bracket (Uranus) and the $100-$300 bracket (Saturn).

You score points by finishing in the money in SNGs. For a standard 9 player SNG first place is 45 points, 2nd is 27 points and third is 18 points. There are two leader boards for each buy in bracket: one that looks at who scores the most points over blocks of 20 tournaments and another that looks at blocks of 100 tournaments. Only your first 5 blocks of 20 tournaments count for the first set and you can enter as many blocks of 100 as you want. Anyone who finishes in the top 15 on any leader board gets prize money and anyone who finishes in the top 10 in any leader board gets entry into a tournament with a $50,000 prize pool at the end of the month.

Since I didn't want to spend too much time on this I decided to play 100 $60 SNG's and 100 $114 SNGs. After completing my set of 100 $60 SNGs I'm currently in 9th on the 100 tournament leader board. With only 20 hours left in the week I'm hoping to stay in the top 10. Unfortunately 37th was the best I could manage on the 20 tournament board. (in case you're wondering I think it's 9th out of 70 and 37th out of over 1,000)

In the $114 tournaments I've only played 65, but it doesn't look too good for the 100 tournament leader board. I'm hoping I can bust out a nice block of 20 and get in that way.

I'm only looking at making $250 for 9th place in the $60 100 tournament race, but the prize pool in the monthly tournament has been doubled this month to $100,000 so I'm hoping to hang on to a top 10 spot for that.

I've had fun participating in the competition and I suspect I might take a few more shots at it in the future. Getting 1st on either leader board in the Uranus division is normally worth $1,000 and it's $1,200 for the Saturn division. I feel like if I gave it a good shot I could win it one of these weeks.