We started event #2 $256 Pot Limit Omaha Knockout with 1,165 players and a first place prize of a little over $50,000. After one hour of play I'm off to a great start. I have my starting stack of 5,000 chips up to 11,600.
In the key hand so far I was dealt KKQQ on the button and raised the pot (the blinds were 25/50). I got called by the small blind and the big blind and the flop came down Q83 with two clubs. My opponents checked and I bet about 3/4 of the pot. After some thought the big blind check raised me the max which was about 2,700. He only had 1,000 more and since I had the total nuts (for the moment) I put him all in. When the cards got turned over I saw he had AA33 with the A3 of clubs.
I was really surprised to see this hand since I would have expected a pot sized reraise with AA and any two other cards preflop (AA and any two other cards is a favorite over any hand that doesn't have the other two aces with one or two exceptions like 89TJ double suited) let alone AA33 with a suited ace.
I managed to dodge the clubs and the remaining two aces in the deck and took down a nice pot. In addition since this is a knockout tournament I won an instant $40 for busting another player (I think that spin on things is very cool!).
I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
NEW BANNER ADD!
Click on my new banner add for fulltiltpoker.com and create an account! If you do I'll get 20% of the rake that you pay the website for the life of your account. Pretty amazing huh?
FTOPS X Event #1 ($216 NL 6-Max) Recap
We started this tournament with 5,000 chips and a few hundred more players than the 5,000 required to meet the guarantee. (I didn't really proofread this post so sorry about any typos!)
At times in this tournament I played great and at others, not so much. Maybe my biggest mistake came early and worked out in my favor. On the turn I got all my chips in with AQ vs KK on a QJT2 board. I knew my opponent was strong and given the board there really wasn't much I could beat. It was really a moment of pure stupidity. But I spiked a king on the turn which lead to a very early double up.
I got it up to 12,500 and then slipped back down to 7,000 or so when the following hand (you could call it hand of the day #2) came up. I've forgotten the exact blinds since full tilt has all sort of ridiculous limits (like 60/120 or 160/320 blinds) but one player limped for something like 150 and a player on the button who had been very active preflop made it 600. In fact this guy had it up to 40,000+, but was down about 20,000 and seemed to be on tilt.
I picked up AT in the big blind and decided to make a strong play. Specifically I decided to reraise before the flop and then go all in on the flop no matter what came. So I made it 1,800, got called, put my hand over the cards so I couldn't see the flop, and moved all in for a little over 5,000.
I saw that I'd been called before I saw what cards had come on the flop, but when I finally looked I saw that the flop was A 8 5 and I'd been called by Q8! That certianly looked like a couple of tilt calls to me!
At my peak I had it up close to 20,000, but then I went down the tubes. I had a guy call a big bluff on the turn and a huge bluff on the river with A5 no pair. I couldn't believe it. Then I lose some more chips with KQ vs a short stack who had AT.
On the final hand I got it all in with A6 vs 66. I made a thin call preflop, but 66 was at the very top of the range of hands I thought my opponent could have given the action and I didn't manage to get what I needed to win the hand.
Tomorrow I have $256 PLO knockout at 11 am and $530 NL triple shootout at 6 pm.
At times in this tournament I played great and at others, not so much. Maybe my biggest mistake came early and worked out in my favor. On the turn I got all my chips in with AQ vs KK on a QJT2 board. I knew my opponent was strong and given the board there really wasn't much I could beat. It was really a moment of pure stupidity. But I spiked a king on the turn which lead to a very early double up.
I got it up to 12,500 and then slipped back down to 7,000 or so when the following hand (you could call it hand of the day #2) came up. I've forgotten the exact blinds since full tilt has all sort of ridiculous limits (like 60/120 or 160/320 blinds) but one player limped for something like 150 and a player on the button who had been very active preflop made it 600. In fact this guy had it up to 40,000+, but was down about 20,000 and seemed to be on tilt.
I picked up AT in the big blind and decided to make a strong play. Specifically I decided to reraise before the flop and then go all in on the flop no matter what came. So I made it 1,800, got called, put my hand over the cards so I couldn't see the flop, and moved all in for a little over 5,000.
I saw that I'd been called before I saw what cards had come on the flop, but when I finally looked I saw that the flop was A 8 5 and I'd been called by Q8! That certianly looked like a couple of tilt calls to me!
At my peak I had it up close to 20,000, but then I went down the tubes. I had a guy call a big bluff on the turn and a huge bluff on the river with A5 no pair. I couldn't believe it. Then I lose some more chips with KQ vs a short stack who had AT.
On the final hand I got it all in with A6 vs 66. I made a thin call preflop, but 66 was at the very top of the range of hands I thought my opponent could have given the action and I didn't manage to get what I needed to win the hand.
Tomorrow I have $256 PLO knockout at 11 am and $530 NL triple shootout at 6 pm.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
FTOPS Event #1 Preview!
Event #1 in the FTOPS X is $216 NL Hold'em 6 handed. It starts at 6 pm pacific so I'm guessing most of you won't be awake to see it if I make the money. Fulltilt has guaranteed a $1,000,000 prize pool so we should be looking at at least 5,000 players although it would be great if there were fewer.
For those of you who want to watch the action live you can download the software at www.fulltiltpoker.com.
They have a search feature much like pokerstars so it should be easy to hunt me down. Since I created this account a loooooong time ago I have a different username. Instead of being acesedai, I'm wes1279 on fulltilt. Let me know if you have any trouble finding me and I can put up more detailed instructions.
If you don't have a fulltilt account, but are thinking of creating one. Hold off for a day or so and I'll have a banner add that you can click on which will lead to potential minor profits for me!
For those of you who want to watch the action live you can download the software at www.fulltiltpoker.com.
They have a search feature much like pokerstars so it should be easy to hunt me down. Since I created this account a loooooong time ago I have a different username. Instead of being acesedai, I'm wes1279 on fulltilt. Let me know if you have any trouble finding me and I can put up more detailed instructions.
If you don't have a fulltilt account, but are thinking of creating one. Hold off for a day or so and I'll have a banner add that you can click on which will lead to potential minor profits for me!
Saturday, November 01, 2008
SORRY!
Sorry about the lack of posts! I had a bad day or two and just didn't feel like posting and then I had to get ready for vacation and now I am on vacation. My son Peyton, my wife Jen, and I are spending two days in Orange county with her parents, one day in San Diego with my Dad and step mom, and one day in Vegas (Peyton is staying with his Jen's parents for that part of the trip).
I was certainly ready for a vacation after the forty days of pain. I earned about 90% of the points I set out to earn and got myself all but on pace for the year. Unfortunately after a blazing start that had me ahead close to $7,000 at one point I actually lost a few bucks in game play and it took the $4,000 FPP bonus that I cleared to make the stretch profitable at all.
Even though I didn't feel like I was playing all that poorly, I was certainly tired towards the end and I don't think I was playing my best. Also I think I was pushing the limits of the number of games I can play at once and expect to make a solid profit.
Luckily my $8,000 bonus for making it to 800,000 points on the year will be in my account soon (even though technically it's a bonus for making it to 800,000 points, you have to earn another 40,000 in the following 120 days to actually get the money) and I'm close to enough FPPs for another $4,000 FPP bonus. So really all is well.
The FTOPS starts on the 5th of this month so lookout for many posts in the near future. I'll try to put up a preview of event #1 before I play it, but I can't make any promises!
I was certainly ready for a vacation after the forty days of pain. I earned about 90% of the points I set out to earn and got myself all but on pace for the year. Unfortunately after a blazing start that had me ahead close to $7,000 at one point I actually lost a few bucks in game play and it took the $4,000 FPP bonus that I cleared to make the stretch profitable at all.
Even though I didn't feel like I was playing all that poorly, I was certainly tired towards the end and I don't think I was playing my best. Also I think I was pushing the limits of the number of games I can play at once and expect to make a solid profit.
Luckily my $8,000 bonus for making it to 800,000 points on the year will be in my account soon (even though technically it's a bonus for making it to 800,000 points, you have to earn another 40,000 in the following 120 days to actually get the money) and I'm close to enough FPPs for another $4,000 FPP bonus. So really all is well.
The FTOPS starts on the 5th of this month so lookout for many posts in the near future. I'll try to put up a preview of event #1 before I play it, but I can't make any promises!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Hand of the Day #1
While I know my friends and family (the ones who read the blog anyway) are always interested in my results, I've been thinking I need to put a little more meat on the table for my poker savy readers. My plan is to start putting up a hand of the day. It's not going to be every single day or even every single day that I play, but hopefully it will be most days. While ideally I'd like there to be some sort of lesson or tidbit of knowledge conveyed with each hand, sometimes it will just be a forum for me to vent about how unlucky I got on a major hand or perhaps describe something unusual.
Here's the story of a hand that I played today in a 6 handed $10/$20 limit game. I was on the button with AT off suit and I came in for a raise to $20. The small blind three bet it and the big blind came along. With AJ or against one aggressive opponent I probably would have capped it, but I didn't know anything about the players I was against other than not recognizing their names so I decided to see the flop and go from there.
The flop came down T 7 6 rainbow which I figured was a great flop for me. The small blind, who was the original three bettor, fired out and the big blind called. I raised to $20, the small blind made it $30 and the big blind called again.
When I saw the flop I thought it was very likely I had the best hand. Now I was pretty sure the small blind had either an over pair, a set or also had AT. I didn't have a good feel for what the big blind might have, but it felt like over cards, or a hand like T9 or A7. I didn't think I was ahead, but for only $10 there was no way I could fold without seeing the turn.
The turn was a wonderful card - an ace! Now I had top two and I was almost sure I had the best of it. The small blind bet again, the big blind just called again and I raised to $40. I was worried I might lose one of them with the raise, but they both called.
The river was another beauty - another ace! Now I was just praying they had enough to call. But to my delight the small blind bet out again and the big blind called again! I didn't care what they had since I had the nuts. I raised and they both called. When the hands got turned over I was surprised by one hand and shocked by the other.
It turned out the small blind had A8 and the big blind hand TT!!! The small blind bet every round with the worst hand of the three of us (in fact the reraised with the worst of it before on on the flop) and the big blind just called on all four betting rounds when I would have raised every time I had the chance with his hand! Not capping it before the flop with TT is weak but forgivable, not raising on the flop is a pretty good spot for a slow play so that's ok, but not putting in a raise on the turn or the river with second set and then a full house is criminal. It turns out he lost less, but it was really poor play.
For me the hand obviously worked out great. Any guesses as to how dead I was on the flop? 2% to win? 1%? WRONG! Before the flop I was 13% to win and 6% to tie. Not what you want, but not a flat line. After the flop I was .11% to win! That's over 900 to 1! I'll try to remember this hand and the $417 that came my way the next time I get really screwed.
Here's the story of a hand that I played today in a 6 handed $10/$20 limit game. I was on the button with AT off suit and I came in for a raise to $20. The small blind three bet it and the big blind came along. With AJ or against one aggressive opponent I probably would have capped it, but I didn't know anything about the players I was against other than not recognizing their names so I decided to see the flop and go from there.
The flop came down T 7 6 rainbow which I figured was a great flop for me. The small blind, who was the original three bettor, fired out and the big blind called. I raised to $20, the small blind made it $30 and the big blind called again.
When I saw the flop I thought it was very likely I had the best hand. Now I was pretty sure the small blind had either an over pair, a set or also had AT. I didn't have a good feel for what the big blind might have, but it felt like over cards, or a hand like T9 or A7. I didn't think I was ahead, but for only $10 there was no way I could fold without seeing the turn.
The turn was a wonderful card - an ace! Now I had top two and I was almost sure I had the best of it. The small blind bet again, the big blind just called again and I raised to $40. I was worried I might lose one of them with the raise, but they both called.
The river was another beauty - another ace! Now I was just praying they had enough to call. But to my delight the small blind bet out again and the big blind called again! I didn't care what they had since I had the nuts. I raised and they both called. When the hands got turned over I was surprised by one hand and shocked by the other.
It turned out the small blind had A8 and the big blind hand TT!!! The small blind bet every round with the worst hand of the three of us (in fact the reraised with the worst of it before on on the flop) and the big blind just called on all four betting rounds when I would have raised every time I had the chance with his hand! Not capping it before the flop with TT is weak but forgivable, not raising on the flop is a pretty good spot for a slow play so that's ok, but not putting in a raise on the turn or the river with second set and then a full house is criminal. It turns out he lost less, but it was really poor play.
For me the hand obviously worked out great. Any guesses as to how dead I was on the flop? 2% to win? 1%? WRONG! Before the flop I was 13% to win and 6% to tie. Not what you want, but not a flat line. After the flop I was .11% to win! That's over 900 to 1! I'll try to remember this hand and the $417 that came my way the next time I get really screwed.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
FTOPS Schedule
For those of you interested in exactly what I'm going to be playing in the FTOPS here is the schedule (sorry for the goofy format and extra garbage - it was cut and paste job). My plan is to play everything except for the events on November 9th (I have plans for that day), the stud/8 event, the heads up matches, and the $5,000 event (I'll probably play a few satellites to the $5,000 event and play if I win a seat). Like the WCOOP my goal is 4 cashes and 1 final table.
For those of you wondering what a "knockout" tournament is let me tell you! The way it works is for every player you eliminate you win a certain dollar amount. Whether they have 1 chip or 1,000,000 chips it's the same prize for eliminating them. For example for every entry into the $256 PLO Knockout, $16 goes to the house, $200 goes to the main prize pool and $40 goes to whoever knocks that player out. Eliminate 3 players and you win $120. Bust 50 and you win $2,000. It adds a little extra fun to the tournament and I'm looking forward to these type of events.
Note that the number at the end of each event description is the prize pool guarantee.
Event #1
Wednesday
Nov 5th
21:00 ET
$200 + $16
NL Hold 'em
6-Max $1M
Event #2
Thursday
Nov 6th
14:00 ET
TBA $240 + $16
PL Omaha
Knockout $200K
Event #3
Thursday
Nov 6th
21:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
NL Hold 'em
3 x Shootout $300K
Event #4
Friday
Nov 7th
14:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
NL Hold 'em
1 rebuy and 1 add-on $600K
Event #5
Friday
Nov 7th
21:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
Limit Hold'em
6-Max $150K
Event #6
Saturady
Nov 8th
14:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
PL Omaha
6-Max $350K
Event #7
Saturday
Nov 8th
16:00 ET
TBA $100 + $9
NL Hold 'em
Rebuy $600K
Event #8
Sunday
Nov 9th
14:00 ET
TBA $240 + $16
NL Hold 'em
Knockout
6-Max $600K
Event #9
Sunday
Nov 9th
18:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
NL Hold 'em $1.5M
Event #10
Monday
Nov 10th
14:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
Mixed
Hold 'em $250K
Event #11
Monday
Nov 10th
21:00 ET
TBA $1,000 + $60
NL Hold 'em $1.5M
Event #12
Tuesday
Nov 11th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
HA (half PL Hold 'em, half PL Omaha) $150K
Event #13
Tuesday
Nov 11th
21:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
HORSE $300K
Event #14
Tuesday
Nov 11th
21:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
NL Hold 'em
Turbo $500K
Event #15
Wednesday
Nov 12th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
PL Omaha/8 $150K
Event #16
Wednesday
Nov 12th
21:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
NL Hold 'em
6-Max
Rebuy $1M
Event #17
Thursday
Nov 13th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
NL Hold 'em
4 x Shootout
6-Max $250K
Event #18
Thursday
Nov 13th
21:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
Razz $150K
Event #19
Friday
Nov 14th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
NL Hold 'em $400K
Event #20
Friday
Nov 14th
21:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
Stud/8 $100K
Event #21
Saturday
Nov 15th
14:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
NL Hold 'em
Heads Up $500K
Event #22
Saturday
Nov 15th
14:00 ET
TBA $5,000 + $200
NL Hold 'em
Two Day Event
6-Max $2M
Event #23
Saturday
Nov 15th
16:00 ET
TBA $100 + $9
PL Omaha
Rebuy $400K
Event #24
Sunday
Nov 16th
14:00 ET
TBA $120 + $9
NL Hold 'em
Knockout $500K
Main Event
Sunday
Nov 16th
18:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
NL Hold 'em $2.5M
For those of you wondering what a "knockout" tournament is let me tell you! The way it works is for every player you eliminate you win a certain dollar amount. Whether they have 1 chip or 1,000,000 chips it's the same prize for eliminating them. For example for every entry into the $256 PLO Knockout, $16 goes to the house, $200 goes to the main prize pool and $40 goes to whoever knocks that player out. Eliminate 3 players and you win $120. Bust 50 and you win $2,000. It adds a little extra fun to the tournament and I'm looking forward to these type of events.
Note that the number at the end of each event description is the prize pool guarantee.
Event #1
Wednesday
Nov 5th
21:00 ET
$200 + $16
NL Hold 'em
6-Max $1M
Event #2
Thursday
Nov 6th
14:00 ET
TBA $240 + $16
PL Omaha
Knockout $200K
Event #3
Thursday
Nov 6th
21:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
NL Hold 'em
3 x Shootout $300K
Event #4
Friday
Nov 7th
14:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
NL Hold 'em
1 rebuy and 1 add-on $600K
Event #5
Friday
Nov 7th
21:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
Limit Hold'em
6-Max $150K
Event #6
Saturady
Nov 8th
14:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
PL Omaha
6-Max $350K
Event #7
Saturday
Nov 8th
16:00 ET
TBA $100 + $9
NL Hold 'em
Rebuy $600K
Event #8
Sunday
Nov 9th
14:00 ET
TBA $240 + $16
NL Hold 'em
Knockout
6-Max $600K
Event #9
Sunday
Nov 9th
18:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
NL Hold 'em $1.5M
Event #10
Monday
Nov 10th
14:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
Mixed
Hold 'em $250K
Event #11
Monday
Nov 10th
21:00 ET
TBA $1,000 + $60
NL Hold 'em $1.5M
Event #12
Tuesday
Nov 11th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
HA (half PL Hold 'em, half PL Omaha) $150K
Event #13
Tuesday
Nov 11th
21:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
HORSE $300K
Event #14
Tuesday
Nov 11th
21:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
NL Hold 'em
Turbo $500K
Event #15
Wednesday
Nov 12th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
PL Omaha/8 $150K
Event #16
Wednesday
Nov 12th
21:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
NL Hold 'em
6-Max
Rebuy $1M
Event #17
Thursday
Nov 13th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
NL Hold 'em
4 x Shootout
6-Max $250K
Event #18
Thursday
Nov 13th
21:00 ET
TBA $300 + $22
Razz $150K
Event #19
Friday
Nov 14th
14:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
NL Hold 'em $400K
Event #20
Friday
Nov 14th
21:00 ET
TBA $200 + $16
Stud/8 $100K
Event #21
Saturday
Nov 15th
14:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
NL Hold 'em
Heads Up $500K
Event #22
Saturday
Nov 15th
14:00 ET
TBA $5,000 + $200
NL Hold 'em
Two Day Event
6-Max $2M
Event #23
Saturday
Nov 15th
16:00 ET
TBA $100 + $9
PL Omaha
Rebuy $400K
Event #24
Sunday
Nov 16th
14:00 ET
TBA $120 + $9
NL Hold 'em
Knockout $500K
Main Event
Sunday
Nov 16th
18:00 ET
TBA $500 + $35
NL Hold 'em $2.5M
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
40 Days of Pain - Day 31
Last weekend I cracked and took a full day off. It felt really good.
I don't feel like playing every day is having a profoundly adverse effect on my play, but I have really been struggling lately. In fact in October I've only made about $1,700 and I cashed in $4,000 in FPPs so that means I've actually lost $2,300 in game play.
The summer was INSANELY profitable and I've got more than enough money in reserve to have a few losing months in a row so having sort of a weak winning month is no big deal. It just sucks to have a bunch of losing days! In fact I've had 13 losing days in the past 21! ACK!
It's amazing how when I'm winning day after day it seems so easy. It feels like my opponents have no chance at all and it's just a matter of time before I get their chips. And then during runs like this it feels like all of my bluffs are getting called, all of my draws are missing, and I keep crashing face first into sets and five card hands.
The good news is that it WILL turn around. Not might. Not Maybe. I could break off five +$2,000 days in a row and make this a great month. That's the attitude you have to have when things haven't been going great.
Tomorrow is day 297 of 366 in 2008. That means there is 19.12% of the year left. Right now I'm at 790,061 points for the year, meaning I have 20.99% of my year's work load left to do.
I don't feel like playing every day is having a profoundly adverse effect on my play, but I have really been struggling lately. In fact in October I've only made about $1,700 and I cashed in $4,000 in FPPs so that means I've actually lost $2,300 in game play.
The summer was INSANELY profitable and I've got more than enough money in reserve to have a few losing months in a row so having sort of a weak winning month is no big deal. It just sucks to have a bunch of losing days! In fact I've had 13 losing days in the past 21! ACK!
It's amazing how when I'm winning day after day it seems so easy. It feels like my opponents have no chance at all and it's just a matter of time before I get their chips. And then during runs like this it feels like all of my bluffs are getting called, all of my draws are missing, and I keep crashing face first into sets and five card hands.
The good news is that it WILL turn around. Not might. Not Maybe. I could break off five +$2,000 days in a row and make this a great month. That's the attitude you have to have when things haven't been going great.
Tomorrow is day 297 of 366 in 2008. That means there is 19.12% of the year left. Right now I'm at 790,061 points for the year, meaning I have 20.99% of my year's work load left to do.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
FTOPS X
The subject line of this post looks like pure gibberish, but as I'm sure you've guessed it's an acronym! In fact it stands for "Full Tilt Online Poker Series 10" which is a series of tournaments that will be running from November 5th until November 16th. This is sort of the WCOOP analog on fulltiltpoker.com and is kind of like the WCOOP's little brother.
They run this series twice a year and while it carries less prestige than the WCOOP, it still has some. The tournaments will have smaller fields than the WCOOP, but they'll still be pretty big. And in general the buy ins are a little less. There are going to be 25 events and 22 of them have buys ins between $129 and $535. By Contrast 9 of the 33 events in the WCOOP had buys ins (or effective buy ins in the rebuys tournaments) of $1,000+.
After a brief look at the schedule my plan is to play somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 in tournaments. The one I really have my eye on is $535 HORSE. If you want to check out the full schedule you can do so here.
While I won't be selling a big piece of my action I will be selling a splash. I'll be sending an e-mail to my usual backers in the near future.
Shifting gears, you may have noticed my new banner ad. I'm never one to pass up an easy buck and I'm hoping this banner ad might just lead to a few. If anyone clicks on my ad and signs up for an account on pokerstars I get a piece of the money that pokerstars makes from them for the life of their account.
So if any of you out there in blog land have been thinking of diving into the online poker world or are thinking of joining pokerstars after playing on other websites, please do it by clicking on my add! If you do so and let me know via e-mail I'll even give you a free 90 minute poker lesson over the phone! That's somewhere between a $15 and $300 value (even though I've given a few lessons for money I have no idea what they're worth on the open market)!
I have no idea what percentage of the rake we're talking about here and the only reason I did this in the first place was my friend Matt Lessinger asked me to. He wanted to do it himself, but he doesn't have a website. Anyway one of the players who he gives lessons to is going to be switching from another site to pokerstars and since Matt had experience with this type of thing in the past (on now defunct poker websites). He suggested that I set it up and give him the money that this one fellow brings in.
What do I get out of that arrangement? NOTHING! But you do favors for a guy who won you $5,000 a few months ago.
For those of you out there that are particularly enterprising (for example, Kristen!), if you get someone to sign up via my banner ad I'll split any money I make off of your referrals 50/50. So tell your friends!
I would give it at least a 60% chance that I never see a dime from that ad other than what Matt's guy brings in, but it didn't cost me anything and wasn't hard to set up so who cares!
They run this series twice a year and while it carries less prestige than the WCOOP, it still has some. The tournaments will have smaller fields than the WCOOP, but they'll still be pretty big. And in general the buy ins are a little less. There are going to be 25 events and 22 of them have buys ins between $129 and $535. By Contrast 9 of the 33 events in the WCOOP had buys ins (or effective buy ins in the rebuys tournaments) of $1,000+.
After a brief look at the schedule my plan is to play somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 in tournaments. The one I really have my eye on is $535 HORSE. If you want to check out the full schedule you can do so here.
While I won't be selling a big piece of my action I will be selling a splash. I'll be sending an e-mail to my usual backers in the near future.
Shifting gears, you may have noticed my new banner ad. I'm never one to pass up an easy buck and I'm hoping this banner ad might just lead to a few. If anyone clicks on my ad and signs up for an account on pokerstars I get a piece of the money that pokerstars makes from them for the life of their account.
So if any of you out there in blog land have been thinking of diving into the online poker world or are thinking of joining pokerstars after playing on other websites, please do it by clicking on my add! If you do so and let me know via e-mail I'll even give you a free 90 minute poker lesson over the phone! That's somewhere between a $15 and $300 value (even though I've given a few lessons for money I have no idea what they're worth on the open market)!
I have no idea what percentage of the rake we're talking about here and the only reason I did this in the first place was my friend Matt Lessinger asked me to. He wanted to do it himself, but he doesn't have a website. Anyway one of the players who he gives lessons to is going to be switching from another site to pokerstars and since Matt had experience with this type of thing in the past (on now defunct poker websites). He suggested that I set it up and give him the money that this one fellow brings in.
What do I get out of that arrangement? NOTHING! But you do favors for a guy who won you $5,000 a few months ago.
For those of you out there that are particularly enterprising (for example, Kristen!), if you get someone to sign up via my banner ad I'll split any money I make off of your referrals 50/50. So tell your friends!
I would give it at least a 60% chance that I never see a dime from that ad other than what Matt's guy brings in, but it didn't cost me anything and wasn't hard to set up so who cares!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
40 Days of Pain - Day 21
I played for a little while early today to keep my steak of consecutive days going, but I've finally gotten to the point where I needed to take most of a day off. Luckily I put in some major points last week so I'm still in good shape.
I have 19 days left to go and need to earn 92,000 more points to make my goal, having earned 103,000 points in 21 days so far.
I had a bit of a bad run losing 5 or 6 days starting last Sunday, but the largest of them was $1,300 and after a $2,400 win yesterday I'm still ahead of where I expected to be in terms of profit.
In other news I've taken on a protege of sorts. My sister in law Kristen has a friend (also named Kristen) who wants to quit her job and be a professional poker player or sorts. She is in a great situation since she's currently working part time (her husband is the main bread winner) and only needs to win about $1,000 a month to make as much as she does working 25 hours a week at her job.
She had by far the biggest win of her career recently finishing second in an $11 tournament with 21,700 players (that's not a typo!) winning about $10,800. Clearly an amazing return on an $11 investment. Not surprisingly she's pretty gung ho about playing. We've made a deal where I'm going to give her lessons and she's going to give me 5% of her profits in 2009. Obviously I'm not doing this for the money, but she said she wanted to pay me something and this way if she runs into a big win I'll get a piece. If we have e-mails that might provide good blog material I'll post them. Here is one such exchange we had recently:
Lately I have had a strange run of "luck". I have been maintaining about 300$ in my account for over a month now and when It gets closer to 400$, I'll cash some out and so far have had about 350$ sent to me in smaller checks-I think I mentioned this before. Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, I lost a big hand at a cash table with pocket queens. It was at a 1$ 2$ table and I raised to 8$ pre-flop. I had one caller who was behind me, I was under the gun. The flop came 10-6-Q, all unsuited-beautiful! I was stoked and bet 10$ just trying to make a little bit more from him just hoping he made a pair or even tripped on the flop. He just called. a 2 feel on 4th, perfect....so i bet 22$ at this point, I felt like i was milking the guy. He just called again. a 7 fell on the river and i bet 36$ he pushed all in for 70$. I had a strange feeling that I might have just been beat by the most ridiculous player imaginable. I called and there it was: 8 9 off suit to wipe me out for over 100$! I was in awe that he would not only call a preflop raise with that hand and then call all the way down for a gut-shot! Is the anything I couldv'e done differently? I'll admit it took me a bit to shake that one, in fact, it probably cost me another 40$ or so not really having a clear head about things. A few days later I got dealt pocket kings in the bb and was left with one caller out of the blinds that had been playing fairly loosely. It seems that pocket kings have been the hand to knock me out o several tourneys lately so I decided not to deal with a possible risky situation so I raised it to 10$. He called. flop is 10-2-5 with 2 clubs. I bet the pot, he calls. a J falls on 4th, but not a club and i bet 30, hoping he hadn't called my preflop raise w-J-10 and if he had, i hoped to outdraw him on the river, he calls and at this point I'm fairly certain he either tripped, made his 2 pair or is really hoping for a 3rd club on the river. River brings an 8 or diamonds and I feel a little better, but jst in case of the 2 pair, I check, he moves all in for 56$-and I call, assuming he had in fact missed that club flush. In reality he had called he had 10 8 of spades! The river killed me. Another 100$+ loss that I felt I couldn't have done anything differently that got railroaded on the river. Is this just part of the game, or should I have played it some other way? Long story short, I had 5$ left in my account and played a 4$ 180 person tourney and came in 5th for 45$ and then played a 20$ single table s-n-g and came in 1st! for 90$ so my account is back over 100$ which I am pretty proud of after those 2 horrendous hands that cost me most of my $! I have the next 2 days off so hopefully I will get in some good playing time. Any suggestions for my cash game blunders is appreciated, as always. Thank you :0) talk to you soon-Kristen
Here is my reply:
I have 19 days left to go and need to earn 92,000 more points to make my goal, having earned 103,000 points in 21 days so far.
I had a bit of a bad run losing 5 or 6 days starting last Sunday, but the largest of them was $1,300 and after a $2,400 win yesterday I'm still ahead of where I expected to be in terms of profit.
In other news I've taken on a protege of sorts. My sister in law Kristen has a friend (also named Kristen) who wants to quit her job and be a professional poker player or sorts. She is in a great situation since she's currently working part time (her husband is the main bread winner) and only needs to win about $1,000 a month to make as much as she does working 25 hours a week at her job.
She had by far the biggest win of her career recently finishing second in an $11 tournament with 21,700 players (that's not a typo!) winning about $10,800. Clearly an amazing return on an $11 investment. Not surprisingly she's pretty gung ho about playing. We've made a deal where I'm going to give her lessons and she's going to give me 5% of her profits in 2009. Obviously I'm not doing this for the money, but she said she wanted to pay me something and this way if she runs into a big win I'll get a piece. If we have e-mails that might provide good blog material I'll post them. Here is one such exchange we had recently:
Lately I have had a strange run of "luck". I have been maintaining about 300$ in my account for over a month now and when It gets closer to 400$, I'll cash some out and so far have had about 350$ sent to me in smaller checks-I think I mentioned this before. Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, I lost a big hand at a cash table with pocket queens. It was at a 1$ 2$ table and I raised to 8$ pre-flop. I had one caller who was behind me, I was under the gun. The flop came 10-6-Q, all unsuited-beautiful! I was stoked and bet 10$ just trying to make a little bit more from him just hoping he made a pair or even tripped on the flop. He just called. a 2 feel on 4th, perfect....so i bet 22$ at this point, I felt like i was milking the guy. He just called again. a 7 fell on the river and i bet 36$ he pushed all in for 70$. I had a strange feeling that I might have just been beat by the most ridiculous player imaginable. I called and there it was: 8 9 off suit to wipe me out for over 100$! I was in awe that he would not only call a preflop raise with that hand and then call all the way down for a gut-shot! Is the anything I couldv'e done differently? I'll admit it took me a bit to shake that one, in fact, it probably cost me another 40$ or so not really having a clear head about things. A few days later I got dealt pocket kings in the bb and was left with one caller out of the blinds that had been playing fairly loosely. It seems that pocket kings have been the hand to knock me out o several tourneys lately so I decided not to deal with a possible risky situation so I raised it to 10$. He called. flop is 10-2-5 with 2 clubs. I bet the pot, he calls. a J falls on 4th, but not a club and i bet 30, hoping he hadn't called my preflop raise w-J-10 and if he had, i hoped to outdraw him on the river, he calls and at this point I'm fairly certain he either tripped, made his 2 pair or is really hoping for a 3rd club on the river. River brings an 8 or diamonds and I feel a little better, but jst in case of the 2 pair, I check, he moves all in for 56$-and I call, assuming he had in fact missed that club flush. In reality he had called he had 10 8 of spades! The river killed me. Another 100$+ loss that I felt I couldn't have done anything differently that got railroaded on the river. Is this just part of the game, or should I have played it some other way? Long story short, I had 5$ left in my account and played a 4$ 180 person tourney and came in 5th for 45$ and then played a 20$ single table s-n-g and came in 1st! for 90$ so my account is back over 100$ which I am pretty proud of after those 2 horrendous hands that cost me most of my $! I have the next 2 days off so hopefully I will get in some good playing time. Any suggestions for my cash game blunders is appreciated, as always. Thank you :0) talk to you soon-Kristen
Here is my reply:
I have answers to your questions! First of all let me say that this is just the type of e-mail I want you to write me. One of the best ways to learn is to discuss the merits of different ways to play certain hands.
The first thing that jumped out at me reading your e-mail is that your bankroll is a little (or a lot!) thin. I'm guessing you were playing on Ultimate bet or you cashed out almost all of that $10,000 you won?
$300-$400 isn't close to enough to ride out the swings at $1/$2 blinds NL. When I used to play NL cash games I would have something like 2,500 big blinds in reserve (which would be $5,000 for a $1/$2 game) and would cash out 500 big blinds when I got to over 3,000 in my account. That's not to say you absolutely have to have that much in your bankroll to play at that level, but you should think about trying to get your bankroll into AT LEAST the $1,000-$2,000 range. Otherwise you'll find yourself is just the spot you mentioned where you lose two or three big hands and then your account is empty.
As far as the hand with the QQ goes I think you played it right, but your impressions about the other player are a little off. One of the big differences between tournaments and cash games is everyone's chips stack is much larger compared to the size of the blinds. Most players have somewhere between 50-150 times the big blind in a cash game while in a tournament (other than the first few levels) an average stack might be something like 20-30 times the big blind.
When the stacks are deeper it makes more sense to call a raise or 3 or 4 times the big blind with a speculative hand like 98 suited once in a while hoping to hit the flop hard and maybe win 50-100 big blinds. Also for opponents that are paying attention it makes it much harder to put you on a hand if you play 89 the same way you might play AQ.
The big thing you missed was that 89 was a DOUBLE gutshot. A 7 or a J would have made him a straight. Given that he had 8 outs to a monster it makes it much more reasonable for him to call you down like he did.
With that said, you still played the hand very nicely. In no limit when you have a big hand and you suspect that your opponent is drawing you want to bet an amount that encourages them to make a mistake.
Let say you've played with this guy a million times and you're 99% sure he's drawing to 8 outs. How much should you bet? If you bet too little it's giving him the right price to call and draw, and if you bet too much he'll fold and you won't make anything with your set. On the flop there is $19 in the pot and he has about a 1 in 5 shot of hitting his straight on the turn. So anything more than $5 means he's not getting the right price to draw. You bet $10 meaning he was only getting about 3 to 1 when he needed 5 to 1 to see the next card. Seems like a good bet on your part.
Of course he knows he might make money on later streets if he hits so maybe it's worth the stretch for him even though he's not getting the right price.
On the turn it's similar, but this time he makes a big mistake You bet $22 into a $36 pot meaning he's getting something like 5 to 2 when he needs 5 to 1.
I might be making this too complicated. Let me just say that if you make a set and someone makes a not obvious straight you're going to go broke. If you don't go broke it means you're probably not making enough with your good hands. You bet the right amount the whole way and on the end when he hits your stuck. It just as easily could have been two pair or a smaller set or even AA or KK on a massive slowplay.
The only thing I might have done differently would be to check the river to induce a bluff. If I was in your shoes I would have thought he had KJ. That's hand where it makes sense for him to call before the flop (I'm not saying you should call early position raises with KJ - in fact you shouldn't, but people do it frequently), call the flop and the turn. If that's what he has then he's just going to fold on the end. But if you check he might make a desperate bluff and then you can nail him. If he has something else (like maybe AT) he might decide you don't have much and bet for value.
On to the hand with KK. It seemed in this one like you over bet it a little since you were worried about getting beat. You can't be afraid that someone is going to out draw you and start betting 1.5 or 2 times the pot. All you'll do is drive off the hands that you want calling you and get yourself totally stuck against the monster hands that have you beat. 99.9% of the time you don't want to bet more than the pot and rarely do you want to bet less than 1/2 the pot. Whether you're bluffing or have a made hand or a draw, somewhere in that range is almost always the optimal bet size.
If fact when I play NL cash games I always raise to three times the big blind if I'm going to play before the flop and I'm first in, no matter what my position (If I have one caller in front of me I make it 4X the bb, with two callers it's 5X the bb and so on). If I get 1 caller I bet 3/4 of the pot EVERY time on the flop. If I missed or hit, or the flop is 3 5 8 or AKQ all suited, it doesn't matter. I'm betting 3/4 of the pot. That way my opponents don't have any information about my hand. All they know is I chose to play before the flop. It make it really tough for them to read me.
Another thing is you want to be careful about always putting your opponent on the only reasonable hand that can beat you. There was really no reason to think he had JT and when the river came with an 8 there was no reason to think that helped him. Checking hoping he's going to bet a worse hand or a miss is fine, but I like betting again (about 1/2 the pot) in this spot hoping to get called by a ten. On the river you can go under the 1/2 pot bet size much more often. If you think your opponent has just a little something you might bet 1/4 of the pot hoping to get a call from second pair or maybe a missed draw that hit a weak pair.
Let me know if that made sense or if you have questions about my comments.
Nice work running that $5 back up to close to $100! I'm sure that was satisfying.
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