Event #2 Underway!

I never should have registered for this stupid Razz tournament! My internet problems have continued and I'm now playing at "wescafe" (that's really what it's called).

I'm down to 2,845 chips from 5,000. After 150 minutes of play we're down to 1486 players from the 1526 who started. It sure does take a long time for people to get eliminated in these limit tournaments!

The edge of the money is 224th which pays $308. The way today has been going I feel like I have about a 1 in 25,000 chance of making the money. I guess I shouldn't say that. I did win $500 in about 15 minutes playing $15/$30 at Matt's, but running all over the place in the middle of these tournaments is making me nuts!

1st place is $53,410.

Event #1 Recap

I finished 4,323rd. Once the blinds got significant I had a ton of tough decisions.

The first one came when I made a bluff that didn't work out, but could have if I fired one more barrel. With blinds of 50/100 the player in the cutoff made it 300 to go and I called out of the big blind with 97 of hearts. The flop came down K 6 4, I checked and my opponent bet 400. I decided to make a move thinking if my opponent didn't have a king he couldn't call a raise. I made it 1,200 and my opponent called.

The turn brought the 3 of hearts which gave me a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. I bet 2,000 into the 3,000 chip pot and again my opponent called. Now I was pretty sure he had a K and figured I needed to hit to win. The river was a ten, we both checked and he took the pot with 67. After that hand I was down to about 6,000.

A few hands later I got dealt TT. The first player to act made it 300 to go and I reraised to 900. To my surprise the small blind called the 900 which looked like AA or KK to me.

The flop came down 778 and both of my opponents check to me. This was a really tough spot. I had an overpair, but also a read that I was up against an overpair. In retrospect I think I should have trusted my read a little more and just checked. But I bet 1,500 and got called by the small blind. The other player folded, the turn came out another 7 and my opponent moved all in. I wanted to call, but decided to fold. After that hand I was down to about 3,500.

I caught a nice break a few hands later when I reraised a player all in with TT and he called with 99. All of a sudden I was back to 7,000.

Miscellaneous hands here and there took me back down to 3,500 and then I got it all in preflop with AQ suited vs AK. No miracles and that was it.

Event #1 Prizes

Forgot to mention that we started with 8,538 players. The edge of the money is 1,350th place which pays $290. To net $1,000 I have to make it to 114th place. To net $5,000 I have to make it to 36th place. 18th pays $10,245, 6th is $23,940 3rd is $119,532 and 1st is $247,602.

The last time my Internet went out I made the a final table. It could be destiny.

Also I decided to play the Razz which is now underway.

WCOOP Event #1 ($215 NLH 6-max) Underway

The 2009 WCOOP is officially underway! After 2 hours of play in Event #1 my starting stack of 5,000 chips is all the way down to 4,800. While it's been a super boring two hours in terms of the tournament I've been dealing with drama in another area - my Internet connection.

Right at 11:30 as the tournament was starting my Internet went out. I messed with the router and then the modem, but with not results. Eventually I checked the to see if the cable was out and it was. We get our Internet through our cable provider and obviously they are having some problems today.

I managed to log on to an unsecured network that no doubt belongs to one of my neighbors. But the signal was weak and I kept losing my connection. About 12:30 out TV starting working again and my Internet was back! "Ah ha!" I thought. Crisis over!

Wrong! 30 minutes later I was back on my neighbors network and cursing all technology. It was a real F-bomb parade.

I decided to take drastic measures and head over to my friend Matt's house which is where I am now watching a terrible movie where Goldie Hawn is some kind of high school football coach, fighting off a small white dog who seems to think I am the most exciting thing since the invention of canned dog food.

I have 45 minutes to decide if I want to play the Razz tournament, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. Even if things go poorly from the start I can't see going broke for 4 or 5 hours and I'm not sure if I want to intrude on Matt's day any more than necessary.

My 2009 WCOOP Schedule

WCOOP STARTS TOMORROW! This year's World Championship of Online Poker features 45 events with buy ins ranging from $109 to $25,500 and $40,000,000 in guaranteed prize money. I'm going to play about 30 events. Here is my schedule:

Event Date Time (ET) Buy-in Game Guarantee
1 3-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em [6-max] $1,250,000
2 3-Sep 16:30 $215 Razz $200,000
3 4-Sep 14:30 $215 PL Omaha [6-max] $500,000
5 4-Sep 20:00 $109 8-Game [5-minute levels] $50,000
6 5-Sep 12:45 $109 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
8 5-Sep 16:30 $215 FL Hold’em $400,000
9 6-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
11 6-Sep 16:30 $530 NL Hold’em [2-day] $3,000,000
12 7-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold'em [4-max] $500,000
13 7-Sep 16:30 $320 7-Card Stud $150,000
14 8-Sep 14:30 $320 Mixed Hold'em [6-max] $300,000
16 8-Sep 20:00 $1,050 NL Hold’em $500,000
17 9-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em Triple Shootout [10-max] $500,000
18 9-Sep 16:30 $320 8-Game $300,000
20 10-Sep 16:30 $320 FL Triple Draw 2-7 $100,000
21 11-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em w/rebuys $1,250,000
22 11-Sep 16:30 $530 FL Omaha Hi/Lo $400,000
23 11-Sep 20:00 $320 NL Hold'em [10-minute levels] $300,000
24 12-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em [Heads-up Match Play] $1,000,000
25 12-Sep 16:30 $320 HORSE $400,000
26 13-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
28 13-Sep 16:30 $1,050 NL Hold’em [2-day] $3,000,000
29 14-Sep 14:30 $320 Mixed [PL Hold'em, PL Omaha] $400,000
30 14-Sep 16:30 $320 NL Hold’em [2X Chance] $600,000
33 15-Sep 20:00 $1,050 NL Hold’em $500,000
34 16-Sep 14:30 $215 NL Hold’em [big antes] $500,000
38 18-Sep 14:30 $530 NL Hold’em [1R1A] $1,000,000
39 18-Sep 16:30 $1,050 FL Hold’em [6-max] $400,000
40 18-Sep 20:00 $215 NL Omaha Hi/Lo [10-minute levels] $200,000
42 19-Sep 16:30 $2,100 8-Game $350,000
43 20-Sep 12:45 $215 NL Hold’em $1,000,000
45 20-Sep 16:30 $5,200 NL Hold’em Main Event [2-day] $10,000,000

I'm starting with a $20,000 bankroll which is enough to play all of the tournaments listed. I expect to play some satellites as well. There are one or two other tournaments like $530 6-max NLH with rebuys that I might play if things are going well. Also event #44 is $10,300 HORSE. If I can satellite my way into that one or if I'm ahead $100,000 or more I'll play that one too.

I'll be posting previews, updates, and results daily or a few times a day. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time, I'm sure you know that I'll have great updates at the beginning and then I'll get tired of blogging every day and they'll get shorter and shorter and farther apart. But I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

If you want to watch the action unfold as it happens you can go to pokerstars.com and download the software. Once you've done that you can go to "requests" and then "find a player" and search for ACESEDAI which is my username.

I'm fired up!

A little update

I've been really bad about updating my blog lately so before I get to the WCOOP here is a little summary of recent events. I put my NL hold'em cash game experiment on hold, but I am gong to finish it...someday. 4,000 hands in I'm ahead about $200 which isn't exactly earth shattering.

A week or so ago I made a final table finishing 6th of 750+ entrants in a $109 NL hold'em tournament. That paid $3,150. But I dropped $3,000 playing $30/$60 two days later. Whoops!

Other than that one nasty session, I've been continueing to have strong results in the 6 handed limit cash games. Anytime poekrstars offers a reload deposit bonus the games are very good for a month or so and since they did just that in August, things have been going smoothly.

I decided pretty early on this year to not go for Supernova Elite status again this year. I had a rough January and February and fell pretty far behind. Right now I have about 470,000 VPPs for the year and expect to end the year with 600,000 since I'll pick up a $6,000 bonus for reaching that mark (the next milestone bonus isn't until 800,000 VPPs which would require another 300+ hours of work). So the end of this year should be relaitvly relaxing and nothing like last year where I worked something like 58 of the last 60 days of the year.

NL Experiment Day #2

I've made a small change to my game plan. I was realizing it would be stupid to skip out on the good limit games that the weekend tends to provide so I could play no limit games. So my new plan is to play ten 1,000 hand sessions.

Session #2 was a moderate success and consisted of 1,017 hands. I was ahead over $1,000 at one point, but gave most of it back. In the end I made a net profit of $159 which was surprising when I saw that I only won 26 of 64 (40%) hands that went to showdown. That seems like a recipe for disaster, but somehow I managed a win. I made .73 base FPPs per hand during this session which is pretty close to what I think I can expect long term.

My E-Mail

I've gotten a response from a few people who are interested in some professional poker coaching. If there is anyone else out there who is interested you can e-mail me at wesdave1279@yahoo.com.

No Limit Experiment Day 1

I couldn't sleep last night so I ended up sleeping until 1 in the afternoon. As a result my productivity was lacking today. I only played 1,000 hands and struggled from the start. I kept getting my whole stack in on the flop with 9, 12 or 15 out semibluffs, got called frequnbetly and caught a bunch of bricks.

I lost $769, but at one point I was stuck close to $2,000 and didn't get much help from the deck so I feel OK about it. Hopefully tomorrow I can get my ass out of bed and bust out at least 2,500 hands.

10,000 Hands of No Limit Cash Games

Anyone who plays poker seriously will tell you that the games are much better at night than during the day. Many of the pros want to live normal lives so they play during the day and relax at night (some of them are sickos who play just about every waking moment and play at all hours). On the other hand, for working people playing poker is the relaxing.

Of course things get a little hazy when you consider than when it's morning here it's evening in Europe and well while we're at it we can throw in the rest of the world too. But since 80%+ of the players on pokerstars are from the US for the most part thinking of day and night matters when you're trying to find the best games.

The point I'm getting to is my normal 6-max limit games suck in the morning! I need something else to do when the games are bad. European players almost always play no limit or pot limit games so getting the evening crowd from Paris, Amsterdam, London and Moscow is out of the question.

On top of that no limit hold'em is where all the newbies, rookies, and total novices are. That is where the growth of poker is right now.

I've had two stretches of four or five months where I played almost exclusively no limit cash games. The first time around I won $11,000 the first month and $17,000 the next. I'd thought I'd hit the big time. Then I lost $11,000 the next month (still my worst month ever) and broke even the month after that. The second time around I bailed out because I wanted to go for Supernova Elite and I calculated that 6 handed limit cash games were the best way to do that.

Now I'm thinking NL cash might be worth another shot. I've dabbled a little playing 500 hand blocks here and there this month and I've had some success. More importantly I'm shocked at how bad the play is and how unprepared the players at the mid stakes are for very aggressive play. Also the specific way that FPPs are computed has changed in the past two years so now I'll be able to make more points than I used to.

My plan is to do a little bit of a stronger testing of the waters. Between now and Sunday I'm going to play 10,000 hands of $2/$4 blinds 6 handed no limit cash buying into each game for $200 (half the max). If I run my stack up to $400 or more I'll jump out of that game and into a new one with a fresh $200 stack. This will hopefully keep me from facing the difficult decisions that come up playing deep stacked which can be extra tough when you don't know any of the players!

While 10,000 hands is a pretty small sample size and $2/$4 is pretty small stakes for me these days (I've played as high as $25/$50 blinds). But it's a good place to start and get acclimated to the style of play. Breaking even or having a small win or loss won't tell me much, but if I break off a $5,000 win that will tell me something. While this isn't nearly a sufficient sample size to precisely predict my long term results in terms of game play, it's plenty to tell me how many FPPS I can expect to make long term. I think it's going to be about .75 base FPPs per hand and I'm thinking 10 cents a hand (or $1,000 total for my experiment) is par for the course.

I'll try to keep you posted. I'll also try not to totally blow off this experiment which is the kind of thing I've done in the past. I'm trying to be a new man these days. A better man. And one of the things a better me is going to do is do what I say I'm going to do!