Back to the Oaks Club

I got my start playing poker at the Oaks Card Club in Emeryville, CA. I know now that it's a medium to small poker room (it has about 25 tables), but when I was 21 it seemed enormous and intimidating to say the least.

The games there are a little small for me now, and playing one game at a time is more than a little slow from my perspective. But about every six months my friend Jake and I go in to have a few drinks and have a good time. Yesterday, was one of those days.

The main reason I started going to the Oaks was they were the only place in town that had a $1/$2 hold'em game (at all of the other clubs the smallest game was $3/$6). We're not talking $1/$2 blinds no limit here. This was 2001, two years before Chris Moneymaker and the poker boom, so everything was fixed limit. This was a game where you could get in for $10 and most people had $20-$30 in front of them. It still terrified me because I didn't have any money.

In those days the big game was $15/$30 and it was tough. By the time I'd moved my way up to $3/$6 I knew all of the $15/$30 regulars. They didn't know me, but I watched with envy and awe as they swapped massive piles of yellow $5 chips back on table 18. I thought someday I'd somehow come up with $500 I could afford to lose and take a shot against those guys. Of course I eventually made it into that game, took my lumps at first, but eventually beat it to death for a little while and then moved on.

While I might be a little bored $15/$30 somewhere else, I get a kick out of playing at the Oaks. The place looks exactly the same, the game is played at the same table in the same spot, and while there are plenty of new faces, there are still many of the same employees and players. The difference is instead of standing on the rail in awe, I'm in the game and I'm far and away the best player. It's like going back to high school and all of a sudden being the most popular person or the stud quarterback or the valedictorian.

While a 10 handed $15/$30 doesn't have the pace, risk or stakes of some of the games I play in, it's not chump change. Everyone at the table had between $500 and $1,000 in front of them when I sat down and there was a lot of action. After 5 hours I won $900, 4 snifters of Grand Mariner, 4 beers, one Redbull and Vodka (I was buying drinks for my self and Jake out of my stack), an order of Chicken Satay and a grilled cheese sandwich (I'll call your Bud draft and raise you a grilled cheese!).

Even though Jake didn't do as well I did, we still had a great time and I always enjoy taking the walk down memory lane that I go on whenever I go to the Oaks.

Today it's back to Pokerstars. I'm going to take my stadard shot at a few $215 buy-in tournaments and do my best to beatdown the weekend warriors in the cash games.

Team Pokerstars Pro Online

Sponsorship is the dream of any serious poker pro. When I logged on to Pokerstars today I got a pop up message about "Team Pokerstars Pro Online." I'm guessing everyone who is Supernova Elite got this message.

In the message was a link to a very brief online application. Essentially I had 200 words to make a case for myself. I mentioned my WCOOP, SCOOP, and WSOP cashes and the fact that I've been playing poker for a living since 2003. I spent the other 175 words talking about how I'm really, really, really ridiculously good looking and much taller than average.

In all seriousness what I wish I could convey is that above and beyond my poker playing I would be a perfect person to promote pokerstars! I don't want to disparage my online brethren, but let's just say some of them are perhaps not as personable as I am. If I make it to the next stage and there is any sort of interview process I expect that I will kill compared to other players with equal poker qualifications. Hopefully I'll make it to the next stage.

The message said to not mention the terms of a potential contract publicly, so I'll have to leave you wondering, but I will say that it looks very interesting to me!

My biggest hurdle is going to be the fact that I'm an American man and pokerstars is looking for a diverse group of people from all over the world. My only hope is that they are looking for 100 people or 200 people instead of 10 or 20. I'll keep you posted.

2009 WCOOP Recap and Totals

I'm going to make this brief since I like much more to go into detail about good news rather than bad.

I ended up playing 24 WCOOP events and had 4 cashes: $215 PLO 6 max, $320 8-game, $1,050 limit hold'em and $215 NL Omaha-8. Sadly these cashes were not enough to overcome the 20 bricks. My best finish was 18th of 999 in the 8-game which paid $2,520. The damage or the main tournaments was -$9,085.

I played 15 satellites and while I hit the money is a few, I came up short in the two 50,000 FPP tournaments I played. In the first I was in 1st place with 6 players to go and the top 4 getting $10,300 prizes. I finished 6th. In the second I was even with my two opponents playing 3 handed with the top 2 getting $10,300 prizes. I finished 3rd (at least I got my 50,000 FPPS back in that one!). These were two of the most heartbreaking shortcomings of my career. I lost $758 on satellites.

At the start of the series I planned on playing a slew of second chance tournaments. By the time they rolled around I'd often been playing for 5 or 6 hours and wasn't in the mood to commit to another long tournament. Also most of them had short fields stacked with strong players. In the end I played 3 of the second chance tournaments and lost $955.

One thing I'm taking away from this WCOOP is I'm really down on no limit hold'em tournaments. I'm tired of playing for hours and hours and having one hand decide my fate. Also the level of play at the stakes that are worth while seems to be getting better all the time. I still have an edge, but it's not what it used to be. Maybe I'm not so much down on no limit as up on other games. Along those lines I'm more and more convinced that I need to search out every HORSE or mixed games tournament with decent stakes that I can find.

In the end I lost more than half of my $20,000 starting bankroll and finshed with a net loss of $10,803. BOOOOOOOO! Thanks to all my backers, I'll e-mail you soon.

Now it's back to the cash games! There are 100 days left in 2009. I have 3 week long vacations planned during that time and since I don't have any point pressure I'm sure I'm going to be working less. But my plan is to play 100,000 hands of $10/$20 in 100 days (I'll call it my 100 in 100 Challenge!), keep tight records and see what I think I can expect to make going into 2010.

A standard convention these days is to talk about profit in terms of "big bet's per 100 hands" or BB/100. 1 BB/100 is probably the edge of what's possible at the stakes I'm playing. That would be $100 an hour. Since I'm going to be making $40 an hour (or every 500 hands to be more specific) in FPPs (not counting milestone bonus considerations) even after my supernova elite expires at the end of the month, I don't need to make that much to show a strong profit. I think my goal is to make .5 BB/100 (or ten cents a hand is the way I like to think about it), but I'll be OK with anything over .25 BB/100. I'll do my best to keep you posted.

Two Tough Spots Lead to My Demise

I'm out in 1397th. Not sure if I did the right thing or not on the two hands that did me in. I like the way I played them, but there was certainly more than one way to go.

On the first with blinds of 150/300 I raised to 900 with 88 from early middle position. I got one caller and then the button made it 3,600 to go. This looked like a squeeze play to me. I didn't think calling was as option here. It was either reraise or fold. Since I had the button covered by about 14,000 I thought I was time to make a strong move.

I made it 9,000 to go thinking I'd clear out the caller and my other opponent would fold any hand that wasn't AA, KK, QQ or AK. I even thought there was some non zero chance AK or QQ might go in the muck given the size of this tournament. Instead my opponent moved all in for 15K or so. At this point I was getting the right odds to call no matter what she had putting in 6K to win 24K. I was hoping to see AK, but it was QQ and I was all of a sudden in bad shape.

By the time the next hand came along the blinds were 200/400 and a player 3 off the button made it 1,000 to go. I had AQ and reraised to 3,200. He thought for a minute and went all in. I guess I could have folded the hand and left myself with 9,000 chips, but I was getting almost 2 to 1 on my money so I called. Turns out he had 99, I missed and that was it. You have to win some of those races to do well in a tournament and I came up short the first time I got all my chips in the pot.

Of course I'm unhappy with the result, but I'd always rather go out guns blazing making strong moves, trying to win rather than just trying to survive.

I got my entry to this tournament for hitting supernova elite last year and I sold about half my action so even though this tournament was a big deal and I took it very seriously, it doesn't hurt as much as if I'd shelled out $5K from my pocket. Also I won $1,500 in the cash games today so it's not the end of the world.

I'll wrap up the 2009 WCOOP (including a recap on the 8-game tournament) tomorrow and give all the final numbers. Sorry there wasn't more good news this year. :(

At My Table

At my table right now there are players from New York, L.A., Rio, St. Petersburg Russia, Budapst, and Portugal (two other players from unknow cities and myself). Every now and then I like to take a step back and think about how amazing it is that we're all connected and playing a game in real time from locations all over the world.

M.E. Update

I've been very careful in this tournament so far. First I folded AK before the flop which I almost never do. Under the gun make it 180, got one caller and I made it 780 from the button. UTG quickly made it 2,000 and it just looked like a big pair. In a smaller tournament I would have called, but it was too early in this marathon to get involved with a player who I know has a very big hand.

Second I flopped an ace with AJ and when I bet the flop and got called I checked the turn and the river. I thought it was possible my opponent smooth called my preflop raise with AK or AQ and was waiting to pop me on the turn. After he checked the turn I figured he had a hand that either couldn't call a bet on the river (so why bet?) like a missed draw or had a monster. Also if he had nothing I thought he might bet as a bluff which I could then snap off.

Third, I just called a raise with AJs preflop and when the flop came AQ2 I called my opponent's flop bet and folded to his pot sized turn bet when a K showed up.

I got a little less careful with AQs. I was on the button and the cutoff made it 270 with blinds of 50/100 and a 10 chip ante. I popped him to 800 and he made it 2,070. I could have folded here, but I thought it was a good time to take a flop in position. The flop came down A 8 4 and after a hesitation my opponent bet out 2,680 into the 4,400 pot. This all screamed a hand like KK or JJ, so I made it 6,500 with plans of folding to an all in which would have left me with 9,000. Instead my opponent folded and I took down a nice pot. That one took me from 18K or so to about 23K.

Just gave back a few grand so now I'm at 20,600 after 180 hands and 2.5 hours.

$5,200 WCOOP Main Event Underway!

I skipped out on the $215 tournament that started at ten this morning. I had the realization that I didn't want to play a $200 tournament for four hours before starting a $5,000 tournament that's going to go for 12 hours today!

I'm feeling much better today. I had a great steak last night, drank a nice bottle of Shiraz and slept for 12 hours. I'm going to recap yesterday's action tomorrow.

2,144 players plunked down the five grand to play the main event. We all started with 20,000 chips, blinds of 25/50 and 30 minute levels. And the blinds aren't exactly doubling every 30 minutes either - they go from 25/50 to 30/60 to 40/80 to 50/100 etc. Not sure if I've ever played a tournament where they start you with 400 big blinds (normally it's 50 or 60 and even in other WCOOP tournaments they start you with 200 or so)! This tournament is going to be looooong!

In the first hour we only lost 30 players which is totally unprecedented in my experience for a no limit tournament with 2,000 players.

The prizes are pretty astounding. The edge of the money is 306th which pays $8,040. 126th pays about $15,000. 45th is $25,000 or so. To make $50,000 I need to get to 15th which pays $58,000. Any spot at the final table is worth $100,000. 3rd is where you get to about a million dollar prize and first place pays $1,715,200!!!

After 100 hands or so I have 19,000 chips. I'll try to post frequent updates.

An Interesting Blog Post from a Great Player

Matt Hawrilenko is considered by some people to be the best short handed limit player in the world. I wouldn't argue. If I had to put my money on anyone in a heads up match it would be him. His only problem is no one will play him anymore!

He goes by the name Hoss_TBF at pokerstars and I've often seen him sitting waiting at the $500/$100 table. He won a bracelet in the $5,000 6 max NLH event at this years WSOP and I played with him for a while after we were in the money in the $3,000 HORSE event.

I hadn't heard of him before this year, but in a previous event someone sitting next to me said "there goes the best limit player in the world." When I heard his screen name it made sense.

He seems like a very quiet and shockingly modest guy. When we were coming back from break in the HORSE I introduced myself, shook his hand and said "I heard you are the best limit player in the world." He smiled like I'd said something outrageous and said "I wouldn't go that far, but I've done alright."

Anyway he has a blog. It doesn't look like he posts much, but there is one post that is a transcript of the chat between him, Phil Helmuth, and another player. It's pretty interesting and includes some massive burns.

It's clear from the text that Phil doesn't know shit about playing 3 handed limit hold'em which I found surprising. The stakes aren't mentioned, but I'm almost positive that it was $500/$1000.

Here is the blog http://hoss-tbf.livejournal.com/

If you scroll down to the march 11th post about 40% of the way down you'll see what I'm talking about. Also I heard about this post in cardplayer and can tell you for sure that it's legit.

Out of the 8-game.

The final hand of the 8-game mixed sums up the way my day went. We were playing Razz and I was almost out of chips after getting screwed on what felt like 97 hands in a row. I had about 500 left and the up cards were all 9 or higher except one player who had a 2 up. He completed the bring in to 160. Shaundeeb (who is going to get totally blasted when I write my full recap - he is supposed to be one of the best tournament players online and playing like a total fool - A TOTAL FOOL!) calls with a ten up (this is like calling a raise with 85 in hold'em - maybe worse) and I raise to 320 with 2 5 9. My other opponent makes it 480 and I go all in for my last few chips.

I catch a 9 and then and J. And then a 9 and then a J. We're trying to make the lowest hand possible and I make a God damn full house! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow, but I am livid right now.

If I can make the money in the main event all of today's ridiculousness will be forgotten. Let's hope that happens.

Time for a drink.

The Universe is Torturing Me!

I finished 3rd in the 50,000 FPP HORSE. How the hell do you bubble two tournaments in two weeks where you either get $10,000 or nothing?

We were all about even on the first hand of 3 handed play. We were playing stud hi-lo and my opponent with a ten up brought it in for 800 with QQ in the hole. This guy was a total clown.

I had TT in the hole and a J up and I made it 1,600. He just called! Amazing! I hit a ten on 4th street! The perfect card. He catches a J.

I bet and he calls. On 5th street I don't improve and he caches an 8. Again, bet call. On 6th street he catches a 9 making him the straight. I check call 6th street and the river. After that pot I was down to 13K and he was up to 30K. If I pair or he just misses I'm solidly in first.

A few hands later we go to limit hold'em and I miss everything. I see 4 or 5 flops and don't make a pair. On the final hand I get it all in with AJ vs KQ. KQJ on the flop, ten on the turn (just to make it as painful as possible), king on the river.

This tournament was just so, so sick.

Also I'm in no state of mind to play poker, but I'm in this very important 8 game tournament which is going to take from now until the end of time to complete so I've got to find some way to pull it together.