FTOPS Event 4 Recap

I had it up to over 11,000 chips at one point, but then went down the tubes. They say to do well in a tournament you have to win with AK and beat AK. Well on two consecutive hands I lost all ins with 88 to AK and then AK to JJ.

What's the worst play in poker?

Here is the history from a hand I just played playing stud hi-lo.


Transcript for game #31356875870 requested by ACESEDAI (wesdave1279@yahoo.com)

*********** # 1 **************
PokerStars Game #31356875870: 8-Game (7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Limit, $10/$20 USD) - 2009/08/07 15:09:47 ET
Table 'Hagihara V' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: johnny1430 ($338 in chips)
Seat 2: amosa ($420 in chips)
Seat 3: kanattack ($155 in chips)
Seat 4: Voltron3 ($282 in chips)
Seat 5: Seb86 ($414.50 in chips)
Seat 6: ACESEDAI ($1431.40 in chips)
ACESEDAI: posts the ante $2
johnny1430: posts the ante $2
amosa: posts the ante $2
kanattack: posts the ante $2
Voltron3: posts the ante $2
Seb86: posts the ante $2
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to johnny1430 [Ts]
Dealt to amosa [5c]
Dealt to kanattack [3s]
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc]
Dealt to Seb86 [Qd]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As]
kanattack: brings in for $3
Voltron3: calls $3
Seb86: folds
ACESEDAI: raises $7 to $10
johnny1430: folds
amosa: folds
kanattack: folds
Voltron3: calls $7
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc] [4s]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As] [4h]
ACESEDAI: bets $10
Voltron3: calls $10
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc 4s] [Td]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As 4h] [9h]
ACESEDAI: checks
Voltron3: bets $20
ACESEDAI: calls $20
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to Voltron3 [Kc 4s Td] [2c]
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As 4h 9h] [2s]
ACESEDAI: bets $20
Voltron3: calls $20
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to ACESEDAI [6c 7c As 4h 9h 2s] [6s]
ACESEDAI: bets $20
Voltron3: calls $20
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ACESEDAI: shows [6c 7c As 4h 9h 2s 6s] (HI: a pair of Sixes; LO: 7,6,4,2,A)
Voltron3: mucks hand
ACESEDAI collected $86 from pot
ACESEDAI collected $86 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $175 | Rake $3
Seat 1: johnny1430 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 2: amosa folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 3: kanattack folded on the 3rd Street
Seat 4: Voltron3 mucked [Js 9c Kc 4s Td 2c 5d]
Seat 5: Seb86 (button) folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 6: ACESEDAI showed [6c 7c As 4h 9h 2s 6s] and won ($172) with HI: a pair of Sixes; LO: 7,6,4,2,A


The worst play in poker? Calling a bet on the river when you can't beat your opponents up cards! This guy called me with K high and no low when I had an ace showing!

FTOPS XIII Event #4 ($216 1R+1A NLH) underway!

This was a tournament that was always on my maybe list and with my mother and father in law in town I wasn't sure if I was going to play. But in the end it seemed like a good idea.

This tournament has a $216 buy in that gets you 2,000 chips. If you want to, for another $200 you can buy 2,000 more chips. Then at the end of the 1st hour of play on the first break you can get 2,500 chips for another $200. For anyone who is serious this is a $616 tournament with 6,500 starting chips.

Late registration is still open, but it looks like we'll have about 1,275 players.

FTOPS XIII Event #2 Recap

I finished 3rd at my initial table in today's shootout tournament. I had some bad luck which I'll share with you and then talk a little be about if it was just bad or epically bad luck.

I went from my starting stack of 3,000 chips to zero in two hands. In the first hand I was on the button holding A9 with blinds of 50/100 and made it 300 to go. The big blind called and the flop came down A Q 8. My opponent checked, I bet 500, and he called. The turn was a blank and I bet 900. Again I got called. The river was a jack and my opponent checked.

I had 1,300 left and thought about sending it all in. My opponent was a bit of a goof and he easily could have called my river bet with a worse ace or a queen. But I decided that it would be better to save that last 1,300 and give my self one more bullet to fire at this tournament if I was beat. So I checked and my opponent turned over KT for a straight.

On the very next hand the player on the button raised to 300 and I moved all in for my last 1,300 from the big blind with Q9. Not exactly the nuts, but three handed I knew my opponent would have a very wide opening range so there was some chance I had the best hand, some chance he would fold to my all in, and some chance I'd be behind, but would still win the pot. He instantly called me with KT. The flop was 99Q and I thought "good he's drawing dead, oh wait he has KT of hears and there are two hearts on board so I guess he has one out." The river was that one out, the jack of hearts making him a straight flush! ACK!

This is a perfect example of how losing players convince themselves that they are insanely unlucky. Let's look at how my hands stacked up to my opponents hands. Before the flop A9 is 59% to beat KT, and Q9 off suit is 34% vs KT suited. That means I was about 73% to win at least one of the pots if all the money had gone in preflop on both hands. That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it (usually the best way) is what kind of shape was I in when the money went in the pot? Well I was 34% on the second hand when the money went in and in the first hand most of the money when in on the flop and turn. On the flop I was 81% to win and on the turn I was 91%. I was pretty far ahead on the first pot, but when the money went in, but a little behind on the second one. If you look at when the money went in I was more like 90% to win at least one of the pots. Pretty good but not a sure thing.

What some people will do is look at the point at which they were most ahead. In the first pot I was 91% after the turn and in the second one I was 97.7% after the turn. So they'll say "Man! 488 times out of 489 I would win at least one pot! I am so unlucky!"

It's interesting how you can spin things so that with the same two hands you can say you were 1 in 4, 1 in 10, or 1 in 489 to lose both pots.

To sum up, I got screwed, but not horrible so.

I have my wife's family in town for my son's birthday so I may or may not play the FTOPS stuff I have on my schedule for tomorrow. If I play I'll put up a post when the tournament is underway.

FTOPS XIII Event #2 ($322 4X 6-max shootout) underway!

For those of you who don't know how shootouts work let me tell you! In this tournament 1,193 of us were split into 216 tables with either 5 or 6 players at a table. Each table plays without anyone new joining until there is only one player left. That player moves on to the next round where the 216 remaining players will be split into 36 tables of 6 players who will again play until there is one winner at each table. Then 36 players play at 6 tables and those winners play it out at the final table.

In every shootout I've ever seen (until this one) making it past the first round means you are in the money and in order to make more money you have to win your second table. But in this one you have to finish in the top 4 at your second table to make the money which is $572. If you finish 3rd in the second round you get $787 and so on with every place in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th round paying slightly more. 1st place is $62,632.

Luckily I was at one of the tables that started with 5 players and after 30 minutes I'm dead even, and we've lost one player at my table.

3 Quick Comment Responses

I always make an effort to respond to anyone who comments on my blog, because first of all I like to know that people are reading and second of all if someone has a question I'm sure other people are asking the same thing.

Luis wanted to know what I thought about him playing $.50/$1 fixed limit hold 'em. I think everyone should play whatever games they enjoy and there is nothing wrong with playing low stakes games and taking it slow. There is certainly more to poker than no limit hold'em, but that's what the rookies want to play so there is good money to be made there. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other games that are beatable that might suit an individual's personal poker skills a little better. I played NL cash games for two stretches of about 6 months, but I always bought in short because I'm not great at folding big hands which you have to do when you're deep stacked. Also the bonus, rakeback or FPPs come faster at limit. I think the easiest game to learn to play very well (but not expertly) is probably Razz. It's a pretty simple game, but I'm sure the players playing the $1/$2 make a lot of basic mistakes.


As far as stakes go when I started playing I didn't have online poker so my game choices were VERY limited. I played 20 cent/40 cent limit hold'em in a home game for a few months and then after a little $1/$2 and $2/$4 at the Oaks club, I jumped to $3/$6. I played $3/$6 a few times a week for a year without every going bigger. Then I played $6/$12 for a year without ever going bigger. In fact I played for a living for 6 months before I ever played a game bigger than $15/$30. Now I've gone as high a $200/$400, but it's taken me almost 10 years to get to where I am. Everyone has to start somewhere and having the self control to take is slow is critical for long term success.

On to the second comment! The mini FTOPS doesn't start until September! Thanks to the poster who pointed that out. I feel like on previous FTOPS the mini ran at the same time, but I could just be getting confused with the SCOOP.

Lastly I don't expect the goofy FTOPS challenges to affect people's play very much and there won't be anyway to tell if someone is thinking about them. But anytime a player has some outside influence (normally in the form of a big last longer bet)that makes them do something they normally wouldn't do, it means they aren't playing their best. While it's not much of a good thing, it can't be a bad thing!

FTOPS XIII Event #1 Results

I have to say that after my strong start I did not have any luck. I got a slew of what I would describe as marginally playable hands and I played them, but never really connected hard with a flop. I fired out a few bluffs, but ran into real hands (or super dynamite expert re-bluffs) every time.

In the end I got my money in good. In fact you will almost never come across a situation where moving all in preflop is such a clear choice. The blinds were something like 120/240 and a player 2 off the button made it 700 to go. The button called and I was in the big blind with 3,500 chips and AK suited. That is go time if I have ever seen it.

Surprisingly the original raiser moved all in for 10,000 or so (I think) with KQ. He flopped a Q and that was it.

Tomorrow $322, six handed quadruple shootout!

FTOPS XIII Event #1 ($216 NLH) underway

We kicked off FTOPS XIII with 5,712 players fighting it out for a piece of the $1,142,400 prize pool. Of course everyone's eye is on the $195,350 1st place prize, but I know plenty of the entrants would settle for the $343 that 720th place pays.

I got off to a hot start making a set of tens on an A T 2 flop. I'd reraised preflop from the small blind and was thrilled when my continuation bet on the flop got raised. I thought about dropping the all in bomb right there, but decided to let my opponent keep the lead and just called. To my dismay my opponent checked behind me on the turn and folded to my river bet, but it was still a sizeable pot.

Shortly after that I made top pair on a ten high flop with QT. I fired the whole way and got called the whole way by AT. Luckily the river was a Q and I'd just about doubled my starting stack of 5,000 chips.

Unfortunalety that brief glory was followed by a series of miscues. During said miscues I gave back all of my profits plus some and was down to 3,500. Luckily a dude with K3 who flopped a 3 went nuts when I had an overpair so an hour and a half in I have 7,500 chips. We've only lost 1,500 players so there is still a long way to go.

FTOPS XIII (and mini FTOPS)

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XIII kicks off on August 5th with a slate of 25 tournaments with buy ins ranging from $109 to $2,620.

This will be my 4th FTOPS and I've done very well in the past with the highlight being a second place finish of 1,100 or so entrants in the $256 PLO knockout event in FTOPS X.

Despite my past success I'm going to tone it down a little this time around. Partly because it's not easy getting more than a few thousand dollars into fulltilt and also because the WCOOP is right around the corner in September and I want to make sure I (and my backers) have enough in reserve for the $20,000 in tournaments I want to play in that series.

My plan is to take $3,000 and see what I can do. If I win a few grand early on I'll put that back into play and enter every event on the schedule that works with my real life plans (my son is turning 2 on the 9th so no tournaments that day for me). If I brick early then I'll mis a few tournaments I might otherwise have played at the end.

For now here is my tentative schedule:

9/5 18:00 PT $216 NL hold'em
9/6 11:00 PT $322 NL hold'em 6-max quadruple shootout (that's a mouth full!)
9/7 11:00 PT $216 NL hold'em with 1 rebuy and 1 add on
9/7 18:00 PT $216 7-Card Stud
9/8 13:00 PT $109 NL hold'em with rebuys
9/10 11:00 PT $216 half NL hold'em half pot limit Omaha
9/11 11:00 PT $322 NL hold'em triple shootout
9/11 18:00 PT $535 HORSE (Yeah baby!)
9/12 11:00 PT $256 PLO knockout
9/13 18:00 PT $216 limit hold'em 6-max
9/14 11:00 PT $216 NL hold'em 6-max
9/14 18:00 PT $322 Razz
9/16 11:00 PT $129 NL hold'em knockout
9/16 13:00 PT $535 NL hold'em

If you add it all up (counting projected rebuys) that's $4,094. Now that I look at it and add it up I have to say I'm surprised that there are 14 tournaments on my schedule.

So what is this whole mini FTOPS thing anyway? Well at the same time as the regular FTOPS events fulltilt is running tournaments of 1/10th the buy in. So at the same time as the $535 horse there will also be a $55 HORSE that goes off at the same time. With the exception of the August 9th tournaments I plan to play all of the mini FTOPS tournaments. Here is the full schedule for those of you who are interested. The mini FTOPS could be fun or a colossal waste of time that bores me out of my mind. We'll have to see. At least I know the competition will be super duper, duper weak and if I can win one it will still be a pretty good sized pay day despite the low buy in.

Fulltilt is also offering a few goofy promotions to go along with the FTOPS that I thought were worth mentioning. First and foremost they will give anyone who cashes in at least 17 of the 25 events $1,000,000. No chance of that happening for me or anyone else, but still interesting. Can you imagine making the money in 16 and having one tournament left to go? Pure terror.

There are also leaderboards for the main FTOPS and the mini FTOPS. Every time you finish in the top 72 places (regardless of the number of entrants) you earn leaderboard points. You get 1 point for 72nd and 200 for 1st with everything else in between (10th is 105 points and 30th is 43 points just to give you a better idea). If you win either the main FTOPS or mini FTOPS leaderboard you win free entry into every event in the next FTOPS (worth about $10,000). Based on past results it looks like if you end up with 400 points you have a good shot to win. Of course it's VERY remote that I'd be in contention and the prize money dwarfs the extra $10,000, but still fun. Maybe an over under bet on the number of points that I earn in the mini FTOPS would keep me interested. Matt, E.B., Jake? Any one want to set a line or make me an offer?

Now on to the really goofy promotions! If you double your starting stack in any two FTOPS tournaments you win an entry into a $10,000 prize pool freeroll. Do that 3 times and there is another $10,000 freeroll, plus another one for doing it four times and another for five times. I expect I'll double my starting stack at least 5 times in 14 tournaments so I should get entry into all 4 of those. Whether it will be worth my time to play them remains to be seen. I expect the first one will have so many players that it's almost worthless, but there can't be too many people who double up 5 times so the last one might be worth $20 or $40 or whatever.

Similarly if you survive to level 10 of 2, 3, 4, or 5 tournaments there are another set of $10,000 freerolls. This should mean another 4 freerolls for me.

Then there is the "zero to hero" challenge. Here is what the website says about that:

1.Start by playing in any FTOPS Super Satellite and win a seat in a FTOPS Satellite.
2.Play in that FTOPS Satellite and win your entry to the FTOPS event.
3.Cash in that event and win a $50 bonus.
4.Make the final table in that event and win a $500 bonus
5.Take down the tournament and win a $5,000 bonus on top of your 1st place prize money!

I can say for sure if you make a final table of any of the FTOPS events you aren't going to give a shit about the extra $500! Let's see I won $50,000 for my third place finish and oh yeah I get an extra $500 because I won my way in by playing a $3 satellite to a $30 satellite to this $300 tournament!

Lastly the goofiest of all! Here is what it says about the "Hold'em challenge."

Put your Hold ‘em skills to the test by mastering at least three of the following tasks in a single No-Limit Hold ‘em FTOPS event. Please note that you must accomplish each task when at least five players are dealt into the hand:

1.Win a pot worth at least 20 big blinds with AA or KK at least once.
2.Bluff with Ace high or less on the river and win the pot at least once.
3.Win 30 hands without a showdown.
4.Steal the same player’s big blind three times.
5.Reraise all in preflop with a pocket pair at least once.
The more tasks you accomplish in a single event, the more Freeroll entries you win:

FTOPS Hold ‘em Challenge
Complete three tasks to win a $10K Hold ‘em Challenge Freeroll 1 entry
Complete four tasks to win a $10K Hold ‘em Challenge Freeroll 2 entry
Complete all five tasks to win a $10K Hold ‘em Challenge Freeroll 3 entry


Hopefully people will do some stupid shit trying to accomplish these goals.


I'll keep you posted on my results!

Smashing the 8-game

It's been a while since my last post (didn't proofread this one so sorry about the typos). I've been on sort of an inpromptu vacation. Partly because I've been doing lots of fun stuff, but also because I was credited 100,000 VPPs for "winning" my WSOP main event seat through pokerstars and that counted towards the monthly 50,000 I need to keep my supernova elite status. This has been the first time in a year and half that I haven't been thinking about how many points I need to earn so I've been taking advantage.

Sorry that I left you hanging on the Omaha hand I mentioned in my last post. Thanks to those of you who posted comments. I have especially been keeping in mind the part of the comment left by the anonymous poster who said "no one ever folds in PLO." I repeat that in my head when I want to three barrel bluff like I'm used to doing in other games and instead look for situations where I can make value bets instead.

I'll try to briefly wrap up discussion on that hand before moving on (you might need to look back at the last post for the details of the hand - I know I did).

My friend Bombay Jack responded via phone call not e-mail so I'll have to paraphrase his comments. First of all he said he like reraising preflop, but preferred $90-$100 instead of $130. A double suited connected hand like the one I had is a premium hand and even though it's a "drawing" hand if you do the math it's a favorite over most of the hands in my opponents' range.

He also said that my opponents preflop calls were very thin at best, but once the flop came out the money was bound to go all in. After following Jack's recommendation that I use on odds calculator (like the one on cardplayer.com) to see where I stood in the hand at various points I saw that we were about 50/50 on the flop. Since we were both getting about 2 to 1 on our money given the dollars already in the pot we both did the right thing on the flop.

The good news is I have played a few thousand hands of 8-game since my last post and I have been totally killing my opponents. I've won $3,500 in the past two days playing a mix of $10/$20 and $20/$40 over the span of 1,000 hands and I had similar results over the preceding 1,000 hands which was a little more spread out.

Amazingly most of my profits seem to have come in the PLO! Whatever discomfort I have playing that game is nothing compared to the complete moronitude (who cares if it's not a real word - you know what I mean!) that my opponents have displayed at times.

Here is an example! Yesterday I was playing $20/$40 four handed and go dealt AA94 with the A4 of hearts. With about $1,300 in my stack I was first to act and made it $35 to go. The player to my left raised the pot and made it $120 to go. Since I had AA in my hand, which (with a few very specific exceptions) is a favorite over any hand the doesn't contain AA, I reraised the pot making it $370 to go.

My opponent instantly called and the flop came down 2 3 J with two clubs. All I had was my pair of aces which isn't exactly the nuts in PLO, but there wasn't much going on on that flop and I decided to go for it. I bet the pot which was about $750 and my opponent put in his whole stack which was about $650. ACK!

Now there was $2,000 in the pot and unlike a tournament where the cards get turned over when someone is all in I had no idea what my opponent had while I watched the turn and river come out. I was in a mild state of shock and since there wasn't much that could improve my hand and I couldn't compute all of the ways I could lose this hand I had no idea what I wanted to come on the turn or the river.

After the longest 2 seconds I can remember, the turn and river were out - the 6 and 8 of diamonds - which put three diamonds on board. In the second it took for my opponents hand to turn over I know I thought "If this guy has two diamonds in his hand I am going to fucking freak out!"

Guess what he had? T 9 7 5 with the T7 of clubs! WHAT! This hand is probably in the bottom 15% of PLO hands if not worse. Remember, he reraised me preflop, and then called a pot sized 4 bet! That is pure madness. I hope he thought "how the hell did I just blow off a grand with T 9 7 5?" when the hand was over.

The only downside with the 8-game mix is there is usually only one or two games going at $10/$20 and the $20/$40 is only going about half the time (amazingly the $400/$800 is almost always going sometimes with 3 games), but given my results I think I have to make it a priority.

In other good news pokerstars is running what they are calling "extreme" satellites to the WCOOP. Between August 4th and 16th they are running 28 satellites with buy ins ranging from $7.50 to $215 and are adding a total of $1,000,000 (that's not a typo) combined to the prize pools of these satellites. For example the first one is a $7.50 satellite that gives away $109 seats and pokerstars is adding 100 seats (or $10,900) to the normal prize pool. More significantly there are two where they are adding 50 $1,050 seats to $215 buy in satellites and one where they are adding an astounding 50 $5,200 main event seats (or $260,000) to the normal pool!
Here is a link to the schedule if you want to check out the specifics.

This is all going down in parallel to the FTOPS so since I expect to be working all of those days anyway, I plan on playing every single one of the 28 tournaments. In addition to the added value the fields are going to be packed with players of all skill levels (most of whom will be weak) taking advantage of the overlay. On top of that it means more weak players playing in the actuall WCOOP tournaments. I'm getting fired up!