Event #26 Underway!

We started today's $320 NL 6-max tournament with 3,273 entrants. After about an hour I'm in 453rd out of 2,740 after running my starting stack of 4,000 up to 6,700. 480th is the edge of the money and pays $461.

2008 WCOOP Event #25 Recap

I went from the penthouse to the outhouse very quickly in this one. There were two key hands that did me in and after some analysis I'm 95% sure I did the right thing in both.

In the first I was dealt AKJJ with 3 hearts. My opponent in this one raised the pot before the flop, I reraised the pot and my opponent called. The flop came down A 9 2 with two spades and my opponent checked. I decided to be aggressive and bet the pot which was about 3,000. My opponent thought for a moment and then went all in for about 8,000. My first inclination was to fold, but after some thought I decided that my opponent couldn't have AA in his hand since he no doubt would have reraised before the flop with it and there wasn't any reason to think he had 99 or 22 either. It was much more likely a flush draw and since I only hand to put in 5,000 more to win close to 15,000 I decided to call. Also I'd be left with more than an average stack even if I lost.

It turns out my opponent had 9TJQ with 3 spades. After the flop I was 43.54% to win, but another spade showed up and I lost the pot.

In the other hand that went against me I was dealt AAQ2 with the A2 of clubs and the AQ of diamnonds. This is a monster starting hand and I was happy to see a small raise a call and a pot sized raise in front of me. My pot sized reraise was about 5,000 which left me with about 15,000 in reserve when I saw the flop with one other player. The flop came down K63 with two clubs.

Once again it was go time. My opponent checked and I bet the pot which was about 2/3 of my chips. When he instantly reraised me I knew he had KK in his hand and had hit top set, but I was stuck since his reraise was pretty insignificant and I had the nut flush draw. When he showed his hand he had AKK9. Before the flop I was 72.98% to win and after the flop I was 29.27%. The turn and river were both bricks and I was left with about 3,000 chips. Those went soon after and that was it.

Pretty disapointing since I'd gotten off to another great start.

Event #25 Underway!

Any doubt I had about playing this one was erased in the first hour. I feel very comfortable with the play and I've had two big hands.

In the first I was dealt KQT9 which is a great hand since there are a million ways to make a straight and if you make two pair it should be top two. With blinds of 30/60 I raised the pot which was 210.

I'm going to do a little aside on how pot limit works before the flop because it's confusing. If the blinds are 30/60 isn't the pot 90 before the flop? If the pot is 90 how the hell can I make it 210? Well the way it works is they assume that before you raise you first have to call. So in this case I first "call 60" which makes the pot 150 and then raise the pot for a total of 210. If the blinds were 100/200 I could make it 700 to go before the flop - a call of 200 plus a raise of 500.

So I made it 210 to go and then my opponent made it 720 (a call of 210 plus a raise of the pot which was 210+210+60+30 or 510) and I just called. The flop came down JT2 giving me a pair and a nuclear straight draw. An 8,9,Q, K or A on the turn or the river would all make me a straight! This was a total go for it situation and I decided to try to check raise my opponent all in. But my opponent checked behind me. I knew I was going to bet the pot which was 1,530 at this point no matter what came on the turn. When a 7 fell I didn't like it but bet the pot anyway. My opponent thought for a moment and then raised me the pot which put me all in (I started the hand with just over the 6,000 chips that I had at the beginning of the tournament). I crossed my fingers, called, and hit a 9 on the river which gave me the total nuts. My opponent turned over AA88 and was forced to rebuy.

On the other hand I took about 2,500 from a player when he flopped a straight flush draw and I flopped top set. The turn paired the board and I was up to 14,500. After the 6,000 chip add-on and one or two small pots I'm up to 21,430 and in 107th place of the 616 remaining players.

We started with 748 and the tournament pays 108 spots with the edge of the money paying $1,921. 9th is $10,837 and 1st place is $144,112.

2008 WCOOP Events #25 & #26 Preview

Sorry for the late preview! To top it off I wrote this post and forgot to publish it for an hour!

Event #25 is $320 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys. This is another one that wasn't on my initial schedule. Even today I woke up thinking I wasn't going to play it. Then I thought to myself that tournaments like this are why I sold part of my action. So I could play medium sized tournaments (I never thought I'd think of a tournament that was going to cost close to $1,000 to enter as "medium," but that's the point I've gotten to!) in games other than hold'em without full exposure.

Of course I did finish 146th out of 2,457 in a PLO event a little over a week ago!

Event #26 is simply $320 NL 6 handed. While I will be playing the $215 second chance NL I won't be playing the second chance PLO.

Before today my starting $10,000 bankroll is at $17,380.

2008 WCOOP Events #23 and #24 Recap

Today was such a shitty day. I ended up going broke in the lowball about an hour and a half into it. On the final hand all the money went in before the draw and my opponent and I both took one card. We were drawing about the same and both caught a terrible cards, but mine was a little worse.

In the $320 with rebuys second chance I never really made any progress and to be perfectly honest I've forgotten how I went broke.

In the $530 with rebuys I got off the blocks quick and kept my foot on the gas. At my peak I have over 55,000 chips and was well into the top 100 with 500 players left. Then two hands did me in. In the first I raised with 66 and got reraised by a guy who was a total nut and was in the big blind. It was a small reraise and it was an easy decision to just call. The flop came down 542 and my opponent bet about half the pot which was now pretty sizable. I moved all in thinking even if I was beat I would have at least 6 outs with a 6 making me a set and a 3 making me a straight. I needed one of those 6 outs when my opponent snap called me with AA. The turn and the river brought no help and I was down to about 22,000 chips.

The next hand leading to my demise came when I got dealt 78 of diamonds on the big blind. The first player to act limped in as did the small blind. The flop came down JJT with two diamonds and after a check from the small blind I bet out. I got called by the small blind and the turn came a small diamond. My opponent bet right out and I put him on a jack. I decided to just call and see what came on the river. The river was a blank and my opponent bet again. I decided to trust my read and when all in for only a little more than my opponent bet. Sadly I was up against a queen high flush and down to about 1,000 chips. A few hands later I was out.

I'm confident I did the right thing on both of these hands, but it sucks to go from great shape to out in a few minutes. I was probably 75% to make the money at my peak and it would have been nice to pick up the $2,000+ for just making the money before being faced with tough decisions and bad spots.

To top it all off I got rocked in the cash games again today. My pokerstars account balance had been falling like an anvil thrown from the roof of a tall building over the past 5 days.

Event #24 Underway!

Well I'm playin' myself some lowball! The tournament ended up with 308 entrants which means it's like pokerstars added $120 for every player. So far I'm about even with 4,900 of my starting stack of 5,000. Also I got a 5 minute phone lesson from my good friend and D list poker celebrity Matt Lessinger who knows more about this game that I do and I'm feeling reasonably comfortable.

This tournament pays 49 spots with 49th paying an even $1,000. 14th is $2,800, 7th is $5,000 and 1st is $42,000.

In other news I'm up to almost 30,000 in the Hold 'em and am in 106th of 859.

Event #23 Underway!

We started today's $530 NL Hold'em with 1 rebuy and 1 add on tournament with 1,159 entrants which is close to double what I expected. Pokerstars guaranteed a prize pool of $500,00, but with 1,159 entries, 804 rebuys and 954 add ons they blew that away. Instead of half a million to split up we're looking at 1.46 million dollars!

171st is the edge of the money and pays $2,190, to net $1,000 I need to make it to 90th, 27th is $5,400, 18th is $8,030, 9th is $20,440 and 1st is $263,384. AT WORST I've got a 1 in 1,000 shot at outright victory and a 1 in 250 shot at a six figure pay day. Playing 4,000 hands a day, 1 in 1,000 type stuff happens to me 4 times a day, and 1 in 250 stuff happens to me about once every half hour. When I think about it that way a major result doesn't seem that far out of reach.

After a little over an hour I have my starting stack of 16,000 chips that I paid for up to about 18,300. Since a few people chose to not so the rebuy and add on average is at 14,400 and I'm in 177th place of the remaining 1,071 players.

38 minutes before it starts there are still only 163 players signed up for Event #24. It looks like I might be playing a little No Limit 2-7!

2008 WCOOP Event #24 Preview

Event #24 has not been on my schedule, and I figured it looked like a good one to skip. Event #24 is $530 No Limit 2-7 Single Draw Lowball. This is a game I have never played before. In fact it's only been on pokerstars for the past two weeks and even now the biggest stakes they offer it at are $1/$2 blinds no limit (and there's only 1 game going right now).

So why in the would would I play a tournament for $530 in a game that I've never played before? Well pokerstars has guaranteed a prize pool of $200,000 and right now there are only 54 people signed up. They need 377 players to meet the guarantee and even that would make it a juice free event.

Also while I've never played this game before, NO ONE has played this game for any amount of time because it's brand new! OK maybe some of the old timers played some NL lowball back in the day when people played lowball, but we're talking 20+ years ago. I played a pretty good amount of A-5 single draw lowball at the Oaks club (one of maybe a dozen places in the country that offer standard lowball in person), but it was limit. While this makes is pretty drastically different I'll know a hell of a lot more about what's going on than the hold'em, stud and Omaha players who try to make the jump. Even the triple draw lowball players might get a little screwed up.

Anyway if it looks like there are going to be less than 300 players at game time I just can't pass up the value. If there are 200 players, for example, it would be like getting into a $1,050 tournament for $530. Hard to pass up no matter what they're playing.

2008 WCOOP Event #23 Preview

Event #23 is $530 NL Hold'em with 1 rebuy and 1 add on. This tournament is going to provide an insane amount of play. We started the $1.050 NL with 15,000 chips (which is a ton), 30 minute limits, and 25/50 blinds. In this one the buy in gets you 4,000, the rebuy gets you another 4,000 and the add on gets you another 8,000. The limits are still 30 minutes, but the blinds start at 10/20! These are some deep stacks if I've ever seen them!

A normal online tournament will start you with blinds of 10/20 and generally the same blind increases, but only 1,500 chips and 15 minute limits. That means after two hours you've gone up 8 levels and the big blind is 20% of what you started with. Clearly if you haven't gotten any hands you're done by this point. To contrast, after two hours in tomorrow's tournament you've only gone up 4 levels and the big blind is still less than 1% of what you started with. After 4 hours in the normal tournament the big blind is 200% of the stack you began with, while in tomorrow's event it's less than 2% of your starting stack! By 6 hours in the first scenario even if you've finished first you've had enough time to chill the champagne and call your friends while in the second, you're still an hour short of the money.

This is why the WCOOP is so great and why I've been able to do so well. It's all about having the time.

Since this is the most money I've put on the line in any WCOOP event so far this year I'm certainly happy that it's going to take a long time. More time means more decisions and more chances for me to out play my opponents. Also with so many chips, unless two mega hands clash it's tough to lose all of your chips on one hand early.

Another thing is since the buy in is so big and it's on a weekday I think we can expect somewhere between 500 and 700 entrants. That means I should have a better chance to make the final table than in any of my previous tournaments and no matter how many players there are, when you play online, all the real money is at the final table!

Also tomorrow's second chance tournament isn't going to be small potatoes either. Even a performance just into the money could make it a big day and two duds could make it a pretty crappy day.

WCOOP So Far and What's Left

So far I've played 15 events in the 2008 WCOOP. With 3 cashes and 1 final table (as well as 4 second chance cashes!) I'd give myself somewhere between a B+ and an A-. At times I've played as good as I ever have in my career and at times I've made decisions that were nothing short of foolish. Counting all the satellites and second chance tournaments it's been well over 10,000 hands which means tens of thousands of decisions. Given that fact it's not surprising that I've made some mistakes.


I've been thinking about the late stage collapses that I had, first in the $215 limit and second in the $215 with rebuys and the more I think about it the fewer regrets I have. I'm not sure if he was the first one to say it, but I always think of a time I heard Amir Vahedi (a player who made a lot of noise at the WSOP in 2003 and 2004) say "In order to live, you have to be willing to die!" Meaning you have to be willing to go for it! The worst thing you can do is play too carefully. It takes balls to be a successful poker player and the only way I was able to make it as far as I did was aggressive play.


When I first started playing poker and even at the early stages of my professional career I was too timid and afraid. I'd frequently come across situations where I'd think "If I was a better player I'd make a move here," but then I'd take the less risky avenue. I was still able to win with iron discipline and precise basic strategy, but I didn't have what it took to really dominate. Now I feel like people should be afraid to play against me in the last stages of a tournament! I'll put those suckers to the test and see if they have the stones to put it all on the line when they're not sure! Usually they back down and I take the pots down. It's this attitude that has lead to many of my greatest victories but it's what did me in in those two tournaments.

My starting bankroll of $10,000 currently stands at $20,415. What I have left might eat up almost all of those profits if I get totally blanked. Here's what I have remaining:

$530 with 1 rebuy and 1 add on (Basically $1,530) NL hold'em
$320 NL 6-Max
$530 Triple Shootout
$530 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo
$530 NL Hold'em 6 max with rebuys (At least $1,530)
$1,050 Limit Hold'em 6-Max

That's $5,490 in tournaments. But it's also going to cost (by my best guess since they haven't announced the buy ins yet) $2,600 to get into the six second chance tournaments that go along with these. And I'm going to take a few hundred bucks to try to win my way into the $1,050 pot limit Omaha, and maybe a thousand to try to win my way into the $10,300 HORSE event.

So if it all goes to shit we may be looking at $1,000 in profit instead of $10,000. With that in mind I'm going to give my backers a one time chance to do a bit of a hit and run and lock up part of all of their profits. If any of you would like to reduce your percentage for the rest of the WCOOP or say "Hey, I've just doubled my money and that's good enough for me" I won't blame you a bit. Just send me an e-mail and I'll mail you a check ASAP. It's only going to get riskier from here on out and you have until 11:30 PT on Tuesday morning to decide.