What's left in the FTOPS X?

Tonight I have Event #18 which is $322 Razz. After that I have four events left: $216 NL Hold'em, $109 PLO with rebuys, $129 Knockout NL Hol'em and the "main event" which is $535 NL hold'em with a guaranteed prize pool of $2,500,000.

The real main event is the $5,200 NL hold'em 6-max two day tournament that goes off on Saturday (and Sunday if you make it that far). Despite my big hit early in the FTOPS, I'm not ready to fire five large on one online tournament. But I am going to take about $1,000 and play a few $300 or $500 satellites to see if I can win my way into the field (unlike in the WCOOP if I win a seat I'm actually going to use it!).

I still have loose plans to go play a $1,000 tournament at Lucky Chances Casino in Colma, CA on Sunday the 23rd, but it's close an hour away depending on traffic and I have some concerns about showing up and having the tournament be sold out (they limit it to about 200 entrants since they only have so many tables). If I'm feeling super motivated I might haul myself out there a few days ahead of time and sign up early.

Even if I blank the rest of the way the FTOPS X has been an unqualified success. But let's hope that's not going to happen!

FTOPS Event #13 Recap

I'm going to make this short since I slept in until noon today and I really need to get to work. I got off to an awesome start in the $535 HORSE tournament, running my starting stack of 5,000 all the way up to 20,000. Then I got done in somewhat by the crazy play of one opponent when I had a draw I couldn't fold (tip: if it's capped three way on 4th street in 7 card stud DON'T RAISE AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY WITH ONE PAIR OF 3'S THE REST OF THE WAY!)and party by a weak tournament structure.

Fulltilt has done a really poor job setting up the blind increases in all the FTOPS tournaments. In the tournament in which I finished second earlier in the FTOPS with 8 players left the average stack was 15 big blinds! This is plainly absurd for tournaments that are supposed to be a big deal. With stakes like those it's hard to play a hand without getting pot committed.

Along those lines there's no way with more than an average stack you should be able to get most of your chips in on one hand in a limit tournament well before you make the money. If this were a $50 HORSE tournament fine, but for $500 it would be nice to have a little more room to maneuver.

Anyway I came up short in the end. No FTOPS until Thursday night for me.

FTOPS X Event #12 Recap

ACK! Major collapse! Here's what happened in Hand of the Day #4!

I was crusing along nicely in this one when a rather inocuious hand led to my demise. With blinds of 120/240 I was in the small blind with 77 and an almost twice average stack of about 20,000. The button who had about 35,000 chips open raised to 560 and after thinking about reraising I decided to just call. I was hoping to keep the pot small and either get to the showdown cheap or take a stab at the pot and pick it up with a bet.

The flop came down KQ3 with two spades. I checked and my opponent bet about 800. I decided to just call again with the thinking that if he didn't have a K or a Q it would be hard for him to bet the turn and if he did bet the turn I could then fold with some degree of confidence that I was beat.

The turn was a 7! "AH HA!" I thought. Now I was hoping he had something good enough to pay me off. I checked, my opponent bet 2,100 and after a short stall I made it 6,000 to go. When he called me I thought "He's got a king! I've got him now! Double up here I come!"

The river was a third spade and an instant after I'd moved all in I thought "Oh shit, I hope he wasn't calling me with the flush draw that just got there!" I was so focused on the big cards and thinking that he'd connected with the K or the Q that for some reason I totally ignored the flush draw. When he called me with no hesitation I was pretty sure I was dead. To add insult to injury he had T7 of spades meaning that I only had one card in the deck that could make me a set and cost me all of my chips.

This is not one of those hands where I can go away thinking there was nothing I could have done differently. I certainly could have reraised before the flop which probably would have won me the pot right there. And even if it didn't the hand would have played out differently which might have allowed me to either bet enough on the turn to get rid of my opponent or end up saving some of my chips. Also while I might have had to call an all in bet on the river had I checked, I suspect my opponent would have bet less than my whole stack. I'd probably be left with only 3,000 or 4,000 chips, but that's better than zero!

While it might seem like kind of a weak play there is some merit to just folding those stupid sevens before the flop! After all part of good poker is avoiding tough decisions and tough situations, and there aren't too many spots where 77 is going to play easily out of position against a big stack.

Hopefully the HORSE tournament tonight will go better!

Thanks for the Comments!

Thanks to all of you who've posted comments recently. I spend a fair amount of time writing these posts and it's always nice to know that people are reading them and rooting for me!

Recently I checked the stats that the website keeps regarding readers and this month I've had about 125 unique users come to check out my blog. That means about 100 people I don't know are reading about my ups and downs. I'd like to have that number up to 1,000, but I'd probably have to post everyday and get a little more meat in terms of strategy tips to do that.

Anyway thanks again for the comments!

Event #12 Underway!

Event #12 ($216 1/2 PLO 1/2 PLH) started with 936 players. After an hour of play I'm in 12th of 728.

I got off to a super hot start. About five minutes in I got KK was up against AQ and I think another hand with a Q in it. The flop came down Qxx and I got all of one players chips and about 40% of the other's! That took me from 5,000 chips to about 12,000 and put me in first place where I stayed for about 40 more minutes.

In the first Omaha round I, busted someone and went from 12,000 to 17,000. I got dealt KKxx and I was up against ATxx with the AT of hearts. The flop came down KQx with two hearts and we got it all in on the flop. The turn was a heart, but the river paired the board and I took down a nice pot.

In fact now that I think about it, I've gotten about a few hours worth of monster hands in the first hour. I had 22 twice, limped both times, and flopped a set both times, once making quads on the turn. I had other hand where I got dealt JT vs KQ. I made the nut straight and my opponent made two pair.

The only hand that really went against me was one where I flopped the nut flush in the Omaha, I was up against a smaller flush and he made a runner, runner full house.

Hopefully the good luck continues!

FTOPS Events #10 &11 Recap

Not a very exciting day in the FTOPS. In event #10 ($322 Mixed Hold'em) I ran my starting stack of 3,000 up to about 4,500 before losing half of what I had when I missed a nut flush draw. The rest went gradually, mostly during the limit rounds where I raised with a few hands, missed and was forced to fold once I ran into resistance. My last 1,000 chips went in with KJ suited in the NL round, I got called by AJ and that was it. I finished about 400 of 667.

In event #11 ($1060 NL Hold'em) I only lasted half an hour. I've played something like 60 tournament with buy ins of over $1,000 and this is the quickest I've ever been eliminated. I lost half my chips with KK vs 44 when the flop came down with a 4 on it and the rest eventually went in with AJ vs 77.

On the other side of the coin I did win a little over $2,000 in the cash games today so I'm exactly feeling bad.

Tomorrow I have $216 half pot limit hold'em, half pot limit Omaha at 11 and $535 HORSE at 6. These are two tournaments that both look very interesting to me. Hopefully I can do something good in one or both of them.

FTOPS Events #10 & #11 Preview

Event #10 is $322 Mixed Hold'em and is underway with 667 entrants. This is great news since they came up well short of the $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. In fact there is a $35,226 overlay which is about $53 a person. This might not seem like a ton of money given the stakes, but it's not nothing.

Event #11 is the biggest on my schedule (assuming I don't win my way into the $5,000 event) and is $1,000 NL Hold'em. I have no idea what size field we might be looking at at 6 pm on a Monday but they've guaranteed 1.5 million dollars so they must be expecting 1,500 players. Right now there are only 243 signed up so I'm drooling over the possibility of only 1,000 showing up. Now that would be an serious overlay.

Sunday Tournament Recap

Forgot to mention that I made the money in the $215 Sunday Warm up finishing about 300th which paid a little over $600.

Yesterday I felt like I played really well all day, but just didn't get any cards. What I got I made the most of, but you can only do so much with well timed bluffs.

When I got a few hours into the $530 NL tournament on pokerstars I finally started making some hands. We started with 995 players and 10,000 chips each. I doubled up early and by the time we were down to 400 players or so I was in 8th place with over 50,000 chips. I hovered right around that level for a while and with 300 or so players I had an interesting hand come up (Let's call it hand of the day #3)

The blinds were 400/800 with a 25 chip ante and I was in the big blind with 94 offsuit. The player one off the button raised it to 1,800 and it was folded over to me. At first glance this looks like an easy fold right? After all I have 94 and it's not even suited.

That was my first instinct as well, but after some thought I decided to call. There was already 3,425 in the pot and it would only cost me another 1,000 to see the flop giving me close to 3.5 to 1 immediate pot odds. But that's not all that was working in my favor. I would expect my opponent to bet the flop if I checked close to 100% of the time. I knew that if I hit I would win much more than the 3,425 in the pot. Also 1,000 was only 2% of my stack so I could easily afford take the chance here. If I had the same matematical situation, but it was going to cost me 10% of my stack I would almost certainly fold. Furthermore my opponent started the hand with 12,000 so no matter what happened I could only be wounded, not killed in the hand.

So I called and the flop came down 9 9 9! HA! I was hoping my opponent had a pocket pair which would mean I was all but certain to get all his chips. I checked an my opponent bet small, about 2,000. This was an obvious time for a slowplay. If my opponent missed he might bluff again on the turn or he might make something. The turn was a ten and I checked again. I was sad to see my opponent check behind me. The river was a small card and I bet 2,000 hoping to get paid off by a hand like AK. Instead of calling my opponent moved all in! It took about a nanosecond for me to call and when the cards got turned over I saw he had AA! HA!

Unfortunately I was on the other side of a bad beat a little later. The tournament paid 144 spots and while I'd started out with a great stack, I started to slip a little and everyone else started to catch up as we got closer to the money.

With 156 players left the blinds were 1000/2000 with a small ante. I got dealt KK in early position and raised it to 6,000. I was shocked, horrified and delighted all at the same time to see the player on my immediate left go all in for 55,000! I started the hand with a little over 40,000 and of course I called.

I thought my opponent could have had anything from 23 to AA and had no idea what I was going to see when the cards got turned over. It turns out I was up against J9 suited which meant I was 80% to win before the flop. After the flop which was 952 I was 82% to win. The turn was a 5 which made me 95.45% to win since a 9 and a 9 only would make my opponent the best hand. But that's what the river was and I was out. CRAP!

The edge of the money was $850, but that's not how much I lost in this pot. How much was that pot worth? Well it's pretty easy to figure out in this situation. There was $500,000 in the prize pool (Exactly $500,000 since that was the guarantee and we came up 5 players short of the 1,000 needed to make it) and I would have had almost exactly 1% of the chips in play. Since no money had been paid out yet that pot was worth about $5,000! ACK!

The total damage on the day was -$1,892. Double ACK!

The good news is my $10,000 starting bankroll for the FTOPS (I'm going to call it the FTOPS for simplicity even though I'm mixing in other stuff) is at $40,389! Hard to be upset about $1,900 when you're ahead $30,000 for the past few days!

Major Heartbreak

I got blanked in the rest of my tournaments including a MAJOR screwjob in the $530. Details coming later.

FTOPS X Event #8 Recap

Event #8 was $256 6 handed NL hold'em knockout. In my last knockout tournament I busted 16 people. This time I did just a little worse knocking out zero. I could have easily gone broke three times before I actually did so in that sense I feel like I played really well. In the end I finished 2,029th of 3,499.

In other news I've had two duds in my pokerstars schedule. The first was a $109 NLH tournament in which I finished 812th of 1,260 after getting it all in preflop with KK vs AA. The second was a $109 NLH with rebuys (I rebought right away so I was in for $209). About a half an hour in I got dealt TT vs AQ, went broke and decided not to rebuy. I didn't like my table very much and just wasn't feeling good about the tournament for some reason.

I've got one foot out the door in the $215 Razz. While it's never over until it's over I'm probably going to finish about 45th out of 72.

The good news is I'm just about in the money in the $215 Sunday Warm Up. We're down to 655, it pays 585 and I'm in 159th after taking my starting stack of 10,000 and running it up to 73,000.