$1,050 HORSE Recap

This tournament was great fun, even though it was a tough field. Among the 32 players that entered were two time WSOP bracelet winner Bill Chen, Pokerstars Pro Chad Brown who won the $5,200 HORSE event at last years WCOOP and has 5 WSOP top 5 finishes, "Chino23" (I've forgotten his real name) who was the only poker pro to make the final table of the WSOP main event in 2007, and "Pearl Jammer" who is one of the best online tournament pros around and (according to his bio on fulltiltpoker) has 1.6 million in career tournament winnings.

We all started with 25,000 chips and while I dropped down to 15,000 at one point early on I came right back up to 25,000.

I did have one big hand early where I kind of got screwed. We were playing stud and I started with KK in the hole and a 6 up. Both of my opponents had an ace showing and after they'd capped it on 3rd street and again on 4th street it was about 99% sure they both had AA. On 5th street I hit the third king. At this point I was 99% sure I had the best hand. Since it got capped again I figured both of my opponents had two pair. On 6th street it was two bets an on the river it got capped again. Since I didn't do any of the raising on the end I was about 95% sure I was dead, but since the pot was an insane 25,000 chips I had to call. It turns out that they did both in fact have exactly what I thought, but one made a flush and the other a full house. In order to lose on the last card I had to miss my full house, and one of them had to hit one of his two outs and the other had six outs to hit. It sucked.

But things got better quick. By the time we were down to 25 players (a few hours in) I was in first place with about 100,000 chips. I kept steady at that number until we were down to the final 8 handed table.

Then I made a bunch of hands. I kept thinking "Man, I am running so good right now!" By the time we were down to 6 players I had about 40% of all the chips in play with over 300,000. And that's about where I stayed until we were heads up!

When we got to heads up we were close to even. Then my opponent kicked my ass in the hold'em which really surprised me. I feel like that must have been his best game and when we switched to Omaha he had me about 600,000 to 200,000. But I kicked his ass in the Omaha! I totally flipped it on him and was ahead 600,000 to 200,000. Sadly he took the advantage back in the Razz and wiped me out in the Stud. I feel like I played well heads up and there wasn't anything I could have done much differently so I feel great about this result!

2nd place paid $8,640! I've got to find some more HORSE tournaments to play! I might have to explore some new websites to see if they have any good HORSE action.

Now after playing all day and writing this blog, I'm tired! I'll have the final total and some final thoughts on the 2008 WCOOP tomorrow.

More Good WCOOP News!

We're in the money in the $1,050 HORSE! I was in first going into the money so it never really felt in doubt. I've slipped a little since then, but things are still going well. I'll let you know what happened when it's over. Giddy up!

WCOOP Update

Well after all my talk about how great I was going to do in the 6 handed limit events I got my doors blown off! I was out about as fast as I could have expected to be eliminated in both the main tournament and the second chance.


But there is good news! I won the second $320 satellite to the Main event! I thought I was going to have to play but instead I've unregistered and gotten $5,200 in what they call "W" dollars. $W can only be used to buy into "special events." While every tournament associated in any way with the WCOOP is considered a special event, I can't say I know too much about what else counts. My impression is that it's very few tournaments. At worst I'll be sitting on $5,200 that's locked up for a year until the next WCOOP. At best I'll find some tournaments that pay cash in which I can use them. I'm not sure yet what this means for my backers. I still need to give it some thought.

In other news I'm still in the $1,050 second chance HORSE. We started with 32 and are down to 12. It pays 5 spots and I'm in 3rd.

WCOOP Complaining!

I'm getting screwed in the limit tournament! I've had AK five times, AQ once, and KQ 4 times. While I snuck out a few small pots with bets I haven't made a pair with any of these hands! What the hell is that all about! I'm down from 7,500 to 3,200. I like my table. I'd smoke these jokers if I could make a pair!

I blanked in the first $320 main event satellite and two $44 satellites as well.

Before today my $10,000 starting bankroll was at $16,002. I'd really like to get it to $20,000 by days end. If I get blanked for the rest of the day I'll end the WCOOP with a $2,644 profit. It makes me a little sad to see it drop so low, but the day's not over yet!

Last Day of WCOOP!

Event #31 is underway! This is the one that caught my eye the first time I looked at the schedule. $1,050 Limit Hold'em 6 handed is what were playing today. More than anything else these days this is my specialty. We started with 580 players with 84 spots paying. The edge of the money is $1,566 and 1st place is $107,300. So far it's not going well. We've played 100 hands and I've only won 8 pots. That's less than half as many as I would expect. Luckily the stakes are still low so I have 80% of my starting stack left.

Also on tap today I have the $530 6-max limit hold'em second chance. This should be another chance to play my best game for solid stakes.

But wait there's more! I also have two $320 qualifiers to the $5,200 main event (one is actually 20,000 FPPs which are worth $320). I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow for some of our best friends so if I win a seat I'm going to in the words of Ricky Ricardo "have some splainin' to do." But these are just too good to pass up. The first one is for supernova's only and pokerstars put up 12 seats no matter how many players signed up. I basically got into a $450 tournament for $320. In the other it's the super duper big satellite to the main event that they have been running smaller satellite to for 2 months. They've guaranteed at least 100 seats given away and I expect this tournament to be loaded with some total buffoons who have won their way in via $4 with rebuys satellites to the satellite!

But wait! There's even more! The last thing I have today is the $1,050 HORSE second chance tournament. While the competition in this one is going to be light years ahead of the people who play the $109 HORSE tournament that I win 1/3 of the time, there just aren't very many chances to play HORSE for this kind of money.

Hopefully I can close out the 2008 WCOOP with a bang!

2008 WCOOP Event #28 ($530 6-max with rebuys) Recap

This one all came down to one hand. Sometime in the second hour of play I got moved to a new table and saw that I was up against not one, but two team pokerstars pros. Right behind me was Gavin Griffin who for a little while was the youngest player to ever win a WSOP event and is still the only player to win a title in a WSOP event, the WPT (World Poker Tour) and the EPT (European Poker Tour). Needless to say he's a great player.

So with blinds of 25/50 the first player to act raised to 150 and got called by the next player to act. Then it was up to me and I had KK! I made it 600 to go and Griffen just called out of the small blind. My first thought was "Shit, that looks like AA." The other two players called as well and the flop came down J 9 7 with two spades. Griffen checked and then the original raiser went all in for 7,500 into the 2,500 chip pot. Right away I knew that was a draw. My only decision was how sure was I that Griffen had AA. Could I really lay down KK here?

After a short moment I decided my hand was too good to fold and I went all in for 25,000. Griffen called and turned over AA! AHHHHHH! The other player had T9 and after no help I was down to 5,000 chips.

If that weasel with T9 hadn't just blown all in like a fool I might have been able to make it to the river only putting a few thousand chips in the pot.

A little while later I got the rest of my chips all in with 66 vs JJ and that was it.

I've decided to skip the second chance tournament and instead play a bunch of $33 with rebuys satellites to the $1,050 limit 6-max (there's one going off every hour). I played $150 in satellites in an attempt to make it into the $1,050 Omaha cheap, but no luck there either.

Event #29 Underway!

Sorry about the lack of preview. This one is some serious shit. 6 handed $530 with unlimited rebuys (you still have to have 4,000 chips or less to rebuy).

We started this one with 852 players and after an hour of play I'm only 30 chips down from what I started with. After 1 rebuy and the add on I'm in for $1,530. 132 spots pay with the edge of the money being $2,205 and first paying $211,000!

Event#28 ($530 Triple Shootout) Recap

In my second round I busted someone early and then sat on my 10,000 chip stack for a long time. The other players gradually busted one another and soon enough we were playing 4 handed. I caught a big break at this point. I've forgotten the precise action, but I think it went like this. I raised before the flop with 67 suited on the button and got reraised by the big blind. I called and the flop came down 6 9 T with one of my suit. My opponent made a substantial bet and I moved all in. He had AA, but I made a straight on the river and sent him packing.


At that point we were three handed. I could tell both of my opponents were nervous and neither wanted to take any big risks without a major made hand. Since I wasn't nervous at all and I had a slight chip lead I kept my foot on the gas. In fact I put the pedal to the metal! I raised almost every hand regardless of what I had. If I got reraised I usually took a flop and looked to out play my opponents. Sometimes I just hit them with a massive preflop re-reraise and blew them off whatever they had.

I think we played 3 handed for 30-45 minutes which seemed like forever. Even though the blinds were VERY small compared to our stacks (they were 75/150 with 45,000 chips in play!) I was chipping away at my opponents nicely.

Then I caught another nice break. Again I'm not sure if this is exactly how it went down, but it's close enough. I raised to 450 from the small blind with A6 and my opponent reraised to 1,350 as he had done many times before. The flop came down T 5 4 which missed me completely. I checked and my opponent checked behind me. On several previous hands anytime he'd raised or reraised before the flop and then checked it meant he missed. Then I'd bet the turn and take the pot. I guessed that was what was going to happen here too. The turn came a 6 and I bet out about 2,000. To my surprise my opponent went all in for about 9,500.

I didn't think he was capable of a slowplay or a big bluff at this stage in the tournament, but I thought this had to be one or the other. I decided it was much more likely to be a big bluff with a hand like AK, AQ or KQ so I called and my opponent showed 88! ACK! I was is such a state of shock that it took me 2 or 3 seconds to realize that I'd hit an ace on the river and had won the pot!

Now I was in total command. I had 35,000 chips or so to my opponent's 10,000. I'd actually played with this guy in maybe 100 or so SNGs, but he wasn't playing his normal game. I guess it's a little different playing the second round of a $530 triple shootout compared to $60 SNGs!

I kept on the major offensive. It wasn't unusual for me to win 6, 7 or even 10 pots in a row. But they were all small and whenever I got resistance I never had the best hand. The blinds had gone up a little bit to 100/200 and then to 125/250, but I wanted them to be at something like 500/1000. If they were bigger I could really make some progress, but with the small blinds I just couldn't chip away fast enough. With 30 mintues limits it's not like I could stall and wait for them to go up either! While I was winning tons of blinds and small pots, I wasn't getting paid off on my made hands.

I started to get really frustrated as my opponent made a slow comeback. He got it back to where we were all square and then I took him back down to 10,000 when I made trips vs his pair and straight draw.

Then a major turning point came up. I had QT and came in for a raise. My opponent reraised, I called and the flop came down AK4 with two clubs. When my opponent bet, it just felt like he had and ace. Even though I wasn't quite getting the right pot odds, I decided to call thinking if I could hit a jack I could end it. The turn was a Q and now I thought a Q, T or J all might make me the best hand so I called another big bet. The river was the jack of clubs. AH HA! I blew all in hoping it would look like a bluff and my opponent called. I thought it was over. I thought I'd done it. My opponent did have an ace, but it was the ace of clubs. He had another club too and when I made my straight, he made a flush. SHIT!

He had a small chip lead at that point, but I never recovered. I had been over an hour (maybe as long as 90 minutes) playing heads up which is the longest I've ever played heads up. It had been hundreds of hands and even though I was certain I was the better player I just felt like I was never going to beat him.

Then I did something really stupid. I had J9 on a flop of QT2 There were a few thousand chips in the pot, but it wasn't huge. My opponent made a massive over bet and put me all in for about 18,000. Without really thinking I called. I had an open ended straight draw which is great to bet with or call small bets with, but not what you want to risk all of your chips with. My opponent had QT, I missed and that was it.

I never would have made that call if it wasn't for the frustration that had built up over the past hour plus of play. It was a total amateur mistake and I'm pissed at myself for getting rattled.

With a 3.5 to 1 chip lead like that I should have won AT LEAST 80% of the time.

This WCOOP has been great and horrible at the same time. For the most part I've been playing great and I'm happy with my results, but these close calls are really hard to swallow.

2008 WCOOP Event #28 ($530 Omaha) Recap

I finished 715 of 829 in the Omaha. What a crappo tournament! That's all I have to say about that one!

The good news is I'm in 1st place in the $320 Omaha second chance after close to an hour and a half of play. We started that one with 99 players and it pays 15 spots with 15th being $653 and 1st paying $7,425.

I also picked up a quick double up in the second round of the $530 triple shootout.

Event #28 Underway

We started Event #28 $530 Omaha with 829 players. 126th is the edge of the money and pays $829. 1st is $76,268. Right now there are 764 players left and I'm in 496th with a little less than my starting stack.