FTOPS X Final Thoughts

Sorry about the lack of update on the last two events. I got a little burned out on blogging in the past few weeks.

In the $129 Knockout I gave myself a chance to go deep. After losing 60% of my chips 5 minutes in I figured it was going to be an early exit. But two hours later I hadn't gone broke or picked up any chips. Then I went on a total tear. By the time we were down to 1,000 players from the 7,000 we started with I was in 6th place. But as we approached the money (which was the top 720) I had A TON of moves backfire on me.

One of my big strengths (which has come from the experience of playing thousands of tournaments) is going after other players with total air because I know the situation is right. Normally when I have a big stack and we're getting close to the money I'm very good at running over the table (no matter what cards I get) without making it too obvious (you can't just raise every hand and expect to get away with it no matter how many chips you have). This time it seemed like every time I made a play someone played back at me. So by the time we'd made the money I was back to average, and went broke soon after when I made a bold, but solid play and ran into a big hand. I busted 3 people along the way (which isn't very many at all given I went from 5,000 chips at the start to over 120,000 at one point), and made a net profit of $138 (including the knockouts) for the tournament.

In the $535 event I went broke in very unusual fashion. Specifically I lost with AA to 23! That's not something that happens every day, and I bet 99% of the time it happens it's because someone slow played their aces. I, on the other hand, actually raised more than I normally would have and the guy with the 23 wasn't even in the blinds!

We started the tournament with 7,500 chips and I had about 6,000 left. The blinds were 50/100 and I raised to 350 in first position. I got called by 4 players in the field and the big blind! ACK! The flop came a bunch of junk with 2 clubs. I bet the pot and everyone folded around to the button who moved all in for about 10,000. I called, he had 23 of clubs, a club showed up and that was it.

In the end I took my $10,000 starting bankroll and turned it into $36,565. Of course all of that profit came from one tournament and if I hadn't played that one the FTOPS would have resulted in a fairly substantial loss.

At the start my goal was to have 4 cashes and one final table. I ended up playing 15 events which was a few less that I had originally planned (the fact that a ton of the tournaments started at 6 p.m. stopped me from playing more), so I'm happy to have had 3 cashes and of course my second place in the $256 PLO felt wonderful.

According to the FTOPS X leader board I tied for 67th place in terms of the player of the series competition. That's pretty cool since there were probably around 15,000 unique users that competed in the FTOPS.

Unlike the WCOOP the FTOPS is a twice a year thing (I think), and I know ultimate bet which has just joined forces with absolute poker runs a similar (but certainly smaller) set of tournaments which I've been meaning to check out. So before you know it I'll be back in the action. For now it's back to the daily point grind. I'll try to put up a hand of the day or two this week.

In conclusion I want to just add...SECOND PLACE! $33,000 BITCHES!

FTOPS Main Event Satellites

I just stumbled upon what might be some great value. Fulltilt has a set of about 5 $109 Satellites to the $535 main event. In all of them they've guaranteed AT LEAST 45 seats will be given away. That means they need at least 240 people to sign up to hit that guarantee. Right now with 5 minutes to go before it starts the first only had 142 players registered. The others are starting in like an hour and then every 30 minutes after that and have just about no one signed up. I looked like I've got a great shot to get into the $535 tournament cheap. Just a reminder to my backers that you too have a piece of all the FTOPS satellites!

FTOPS Update

Sorry for the major blog slacking! I went broke in the $216 FTOPS event in unspectacular fashion on Friday (I don't think I ever mentioned that result), and I just wasn't in the mood to play yesterday afternoon so I blew off the $109 PLO with rebuys.

I did have an interesting hand come up in the $535 heads up matches. I'm going to call it hand of the day #4. About 10 hands into my first match I got dealt 84 off suit in the big blind. My opponent just called and I checked. The flop came down QJ8 all hearts, I checked and my opponent bet 30 into the 60 chip pot. I didn't have much with bottom pair no kicker, but since my opponent could have just about anything I thought it might be the best hand.

The turn brought another 8! BINGO! Now I was hoping I was up against a Q or a J. Looking to get maximum value I checked and when my opponent bet 90 I made it 270 to go. We'd both started the tournament with 3,000 chips and I'd started the hand with a few hundred more than my opponent so I knew if he overplayed the hand or made an insane all in bluff I could bust him and move on to the next round.

After a long stall my opponent called my raise. I was thinking anything but a heart, a Q or a J would be a good river card. Instead I got a great one - a 4! There was almost 700 in the pot and I decided a bet of 400 was about right. To my delight my opponent made it 1,700 to go. This looked like a total bluff to me, but no matter what it was my only move was going all in.

My opponent instantly called and turned over T9 of hearts. For a second I thought about how I'd just put a sweet bad beat on him...and then I saw that T9 made a straight flush! AHHHHHHH!

Losing a full house to a straight flush is not something that happens everyday. I lost an ace high flush to a straight flush about a week ago, but I think it's been a few months if not years since I've lost a full house to a straight flush (I've never lost with 4 of a kind or better, but I have beaten 4 of a kind twice with better quads).

I was left with about 300 chips and actually brought that back to over 2,000 before getting it all in with a flush draw and losing to two pair.

In other news I've decided to skip the $1,000 in person tournament next Sunday. I need to get my FPP production back into full swing, and that's the day before I go on vacation for over a week which will no doubt take some prep time.

So today is the end of the FTOPS X. Hopefully I can do something in one of these last two tournaments. I'll give you all the final total at the end of the day today or tomorrow and I'll be sending out backer checks early next week.

FTOPS Satellite Update

SO CLOSE! I finished 10th of 88 in a $322 satellite to the $5,200 FTOPS event where the top five finishers got seats. The good news is I only played two other satellites, a $216 to the $5,200 event and a $109 to todays $535 heads up matches event.

In the latter the top 42 finishers of 227 entrants got a seat and while I was about 3 hands from being anted off I made it to the top 42! So it lookes like I'm playing $535heads up matches at 11 am. To make the money I'll need to win 3 matches, each vs just one opponent. I really enjoy this format, but I haven't had a ton of success playing in events with this structure so that's why I left it off my original schedule.

Of course I played the satellite on a total whim. In fact the tournament had already been running for 5 minutes when a message in the chat box of one of my other satellites mentioned it and said registration would be closing soon. For $109 I figured what the hell. Maybe it's destiny!

I also have $109 PLO with rebuys at 1. I'm 2 for 2 in PLO events in the FTOPS so I'm feeling good about my chances.

FTOPS Event #18, WSOP Champs, and Peter Eastgate Trying to Kill Me

I got my starting stack of 4,000 chips up to 8,000 at one point in Event #18 ($322 Razz), but that was as far as it went.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this tournament was I got to play against 1996 WSOP main event Champ Huck Seed until he went broke. Huck has two WSOP bracelets in Razz so it was interesting to watch one of the worlds best razz players play for a few hours.

This makes 5 world champions that I've played against. Specifically, Tom McEvoy (1983), Phil Helmuth (1989), Huck Seed (1996), Chris Ferguson (2000) and Chris Moneymaker (2003).

Also of note I've played against three WSOP main event runners up: Dewey Tomko (1982, 2001), Erik Seidel (1988), and Julian Gardner (2002). And of course like everyone who has ever been to Vegas I played craps with 1985/2000 runner up T.J. Cloutier.

This leads me to briefly mention the 2008 WSOP main event champion Peter Eastgate who was recently crowned the champ. Have you seen this guy? Did you see his reaction when he won over $9,000,000 and the world championship? He looked like he was watching episodes of Full House that he'd seen five times before. He looked like he was waiting for his bags at the airport. He looked like he was playing 50 cent blackjack and they told him it was time to shuffle the deck. Did no one tell him about the $9,000,000? Was he on some massive depressants or something?

Of the 9 people at the final table he was the worst one for the promotion of poker. He has all the charisma of a bowl of plain, lite oatmeal. He makes Greg Raymer look like Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club. He makes Robert Varkoni look like James Bond. He makes Jaime Gold seem like an F-ing mix of Mick Jagger, Tiger Woods and Han Solo! When is someone with a little personality going to win the world championship? You're killing me Peter Eastgate! You're Killing me! If someone with the vitality of the keyboard player of any marginal 80's rock band could win, online poker would get a major boost. Instead we have Peter "plain rice cake, fat free vanilla pudding, room temperature water" Eastgate. ACK! If (cough, when, cough) I ever win that shit I'm going to need 6 agents to negotiate all of the sponsorship deals!

Whew! Sorry Peter. I laid it on a little thick there. I'm sure you're a great guy and I'm sorry I spent the last few paragraphs slamming you. I'm sure you don't deserve it.

In all seriousness, Eastgate played great and he deserved to win. I was rooting for Chino Rheem (who I played against at the final table of the $1,000 HORSE second chance tournament in the WCOOP), but Eastgate did his thing and maybe in the coming months and years he'll turn out to be an admirable champ.

But for now, YOU'RE KILLING ME PETER EASTGATE, YOU'RE KILLING ME! YOU'RE SO BORING! AHHHHHHHHHHH!

PPA Congress Ratings!

Check to see if your congress person is good or bad for online poker here! Of the three listed for my zip code one got an F- (ACK!), another got an F and another got a B.

Unlawful Internet Gaming Comment Response

Recently London Dave put up the following comment:

Dave
What is your take as an American online pro, and implications for you.


Compliance 12/1/09

The Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board today announced the release of a joint final rule to implement the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The Act prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with unlawful Internet gambling, including payments made through credit cards, electronic funds transfers, and checks.

The Board and the Treasury are required by the Act to develop a joint rule in consultation with the Department of Justice. The final rule requires U.S. financial firms that participate in designated payment systems to establish and implement policies and procedures that are reasonably designed to prevent payments to gambling businesses in connection with unlawful Internet gambling. The rule provides non-exclusive examples of such policies and procedures and sets out the regulatory enforcement framework. For purposes of the rule, unlawful Internet gambling generally would cover the making of a bet or wager that involves use of the Internet and that is unlawful under any applicable federal or state law in the jurisdiction where the bet or wager is initiated, received, or otherwise made.

Compliance with the rule is required by December 1, 2009.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsev...20081112a1.pdf

London Dave

For those of you who have forgotten or didn't know the story of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act here is a brief summary of the story. When the UIGEI passed in September 2006 as a last second addition to the Safe Port Act of 2006 (tell me that's not total bullshit!) it called for the treasury department to figure out a way to police transactions related to online gaming within 270 days. Banks everywhere cursed under their breath at the super conservative republicans who snuck this garbage in there.

As soon as this legislation passed a movement to get it repealed started. The Poker Players Alliance was created. To make a long story short on that front there are now over 1,000,000 members with a former US senator as the leader. The PPA is constantly lobbying in Washington and pushing forward the cause and fighting for the rights of poker players in the US. Check out their webiste here for all the latest news about the legality of online poker.

Nothing happened for about 50 of those 270 days, then a bunch of bad stuff happened. Neteller and Firepay the two leading processors of payments from customers to online casinos (and vice versa) decided overnight to block US users. Then one by one all of the publicly traded poker sites (including party poker which at the time was by far the industry leader) either shut down completely or blocked US users which turned them into poker ghost towns. This was a major boon for the privately owned websites who's market share got a major boost overnight.

Around this time the games got really tough. Some casual players fearing they were breaking the law stopped playing. Others ran out of money in their account and weren't willing to jump through the hoops to get more in there. All of a sudden if you were in the US the only way to get money into your account was to send the website a money order when before that it was a few clicks and the money was instantly available for play. There were still games to be played, but the easy money started to dry up.

For a good while everything was quiet as far as the UIGEA was concerned. The 270 days came and went and nothing changed. Then came a light in the distance! A savior! A miracle! INSTANT E-CHECKS! All of a sudden it was back to instant transfers right from your bank account to the website.

Gradually the games got better and then there was a bit of good news. A few of the websites that had blocked US users, unblocked them and came back into the fold. To me this was a major sign that the UIGEA was something that was going to be on the books, but didn't really have any teeth.

The news of this week is that the government has set the date of December 1st 2009 for compliance. This seems very similar to the deadline of 270 days. Well guess what, we're coming up on 800 days and all they've done is set a new deadline!

Maybe the biggest problem the government is going to have is the banks don't want any part of this! They don't want to have to review every single transaction to see if it's related in some distant way to online gaming. And even if they did want to check everything out, I'm not sure they could stop it without tremendous effort and cost. With all the trouble in the banking system these days I can't imagine anyone pushing for anything that would make it tougher and more expensive for banks to do business.

When I cashout my checks don't say Pokerstars.com Internet gaming. They say KJR financial or CRQ corp. or BRG group. I don't know if it's ever said the same thing on top of any two checks I've received. Furthermore, the checks themselves all look different and they come from a wide variety of banks.

On the other end when you make a deposit to the website it doesn't say anything at all about gambling on your statement. It says netvibes or intertainment or whatever.

Right now there are no fewer that 6 bills in congress related in one way or another to repealing the UIGEA and/or creating a regulated form of Internet gambling in the US. With the new congress and new administration coming in who knows what might happen.

The two biggest things I have working in my favor are 1) Poker is a skill game and 2) just about no one is in favor of a ban on Internet poker. There has been much talk that even if other online gambling gets squashed somehow that a niche will be carved out for poker since it's a game of skill. The main group of people who are in favor of a ban on online poker are religious Conservatives. In congress those people are on the way out or their power has been greatly diminished. The people who are against it are the banks, the poker players, and most important of all people who think Americans should be able to spend their money however they want to!

Anyway, to sum up I'm not worried. I think things will remain as they are or get better for me. Since I pay my taxes I'm not worried about the government taxing and regulating the industry. If the government licensed a regulated Internet gambling it would be worth billions of dollars to them and everyone in the industry knows that it would bring in so much new money to the system that the extra taxes would hardly matter.

I'm not sure if I really responded to your comment or not Dave. Let me know if there was anything specifically that you'd like me to comment on additionally.

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!