Legends of Poker

I'm leaving tomorrow for a mix of vacation and poker in Southern California. The poker will be playing a half dozen tournaments in the "Legends of Poker" series at The Bicycle Casino.

Here is my schedule:

7/31 6 pm $335 "re-entry" NL hold'em
8/2 1 pm $225 NL hold'em shootout
8/2 6 pm $275 NL hold'em with $50 bounties
8/3 1 pm $225 NL hold'em 6 handed
8/3 6 pm $225 HORSE
8/4 6 pm $330 NL hold'em Deep stack
8/6 6 pm $335 "re-entry" NL hold'em
8/7 6 pm $335 "re-entry" NL hold'em

The re-entry tournaments are interesting. The first one on my schedule is actually day 1D of a massive tournament where if you bust out you can reenter. Day 1A was yesterday, 1B is today, and 1C is tomorrow. If you go broke on any of those days you can try again the next day. And if you go broke before a certain level you can try again the same day.

The last two tournaments on my schedule are the same (In fact they are days 1A and 1B). If I don't make it through day 1A, I'll try again on day 1B. Hopefully I won't have to fire too many bullets in these and can get into a tournament with a huge prize pool for not to much cash.

The other tournaments are pretty standard, but I'm looking forward to playing a field that should be almost all amateurs rather than the fields of all pros at the WSOP. I'm sure my online hourly rate is higher than my expected hourly rate in these tournaments, but they should be enjoyable and if nothing else I'm looking at this as a training exercise.

If I can find two deep cashes or one final table the series will be a solid success.

I'll be tweeting updates on every break so you can follow the action as it happens.

The FTOPS starts on August 4th so that will be intertwined with the LOP action, but I'll post more on that later.

An Interesting Article

Apparently someone has succeeded in using "bots" - computer programs that make all the decisions - to beat some of the small stakes games on pokerstars. It looks like the jig is up now though. It also seems like they did a shitty job with the tactics based on some of the moves they had the bots make.

Here is the full story.

I talked to a guy in Vegas once who had created a bot and tried it out. He said he let it run for about 8 hours in three $.02/$.04 cent limit games. At the end it was ahead a total of about $30 which is 750 big bets! That would be $15,000 at $10/$20! He said they caught him the next day and closed his account.

I'm sure there are some other bots out there, but for the most part, I'm not worried about them getting the best of me. And even if I knew for 100% sure that there were lots of the most advanced bots constantly playing in the exact games I play, it wouldn't stop me from playing since I'm winning anyway.

Legends of Poker, FTOPS, and UBOC

August is going to be a busy month for me.

At the start of the month I'm going to spend a week in southern California with plans to play 7 or 8 tournaments in the "Legends of Poker" series at the Bicycle Casino. All of the tournaments are in the $225-$330 range so we're not talking life changing stakes, but there will still be some significant cash on the line . Also I'm looking forward to playing some live tournaments without the massive pressure of the WSOP.

Starting Aug 4th the 17th version of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series kicks off. Looking at the schedule there are 10 events that look playable to me with buy ins ranging from $216 to $640.

Finally starting on August 18th is the Ultimate Bet Online Championship. I'm likely to play another 9 or 10 events in this series with buy ins ranging from $162 to $1,050.

All of this tournament action will if nothing else lead to a boat load of blog posts in August. More details later.

A Drunken Final Table

When I came back from the WSOP I spent some time neglecting my cash games and instead playing multitable tournaments. In Vegas it took me 7 playing days to play 4 tournaments. But back at home base I could play 10 (or more) in a day with little difficulty. It was very hard to resist and I was salivating thinking about winning something outright or at least going deep.

But after a bunch of bricks I instead moved my focus back to cash games. There's nothing sexy about $15/$30 limit hold'em, but it pays the bills and that is always the primary goal for me.

In order to get my multitable fix a few time recently I found myself playing multitables recreationaly. Almost all of my playing is at my desktop with my 30 inch monitor and no distractions. It's serious business and requires maximum focus. When I say recreational I mean smaller stakes, in front of the TV on my laptop, with a beer or a glass of wine.

On Friday I spent the morning playing tennis and the early afternoon at a movie. I banged out about 500 hands of cash games in the late afternoon and even though I intended to play 2 or 3 times that much, I hit and ran when I found myself up $1,500.

That night seemed the perfect time for some recreational play. At 7:45 I jumped into a $33 with rebuys towards the end of the rebuy period on Absolute and shortly after I was in two $75 tournaments on Full Tilt and a $77 6-max NL on pokerstars. That is also when I started drinking.

When I first started playing online in 2004 it was not unusual for me to have a drink or two or three when I was playing. But it became perfectly clear in no time at all that it was affecting my results. I felt like I was making the same decisions, but clearly I wasn't. After this realization, I had a span of years in the middle of my career where I never had a drop of alcohol while I was playing.

While it's certainly not optimal, after a few million hands and a thousands of tournaments (ten of thousands if you count sit-n-go's), a few drinks doesn't throw me off like it used to. I guess I'd say it takes my "A' game out of play, but usually I'm still capable of my "B" game.

Fast forward a few hours into my story and I'm still in the the $33 with rebuys. We started with about 175 players and 18 spots paid. I made the money with more than twice an average stack.

This was the ultimate no fear situation. I was up $1,500 on the day in the cash games, I'd been drinking for 3 or 4 hours, and while 1st place was just over $4,500, 9th was less than $300. This was a situation where I was not fucking around. I was going for the top.

On the other hand my opponents went into full blown pussy mode. I was raising at least 50% of the hands that were folded to me and getting away with it. Soon I was in the tournament chip lead. If someone played a hand and didn't move all in, I was frequently reraising no matter what my cards looked like.

There really weren't many big hands to speak of, because on so many pots my cards didn't matter. From the time we made the money until the end I never had more than half my stack in the pot.

The biggest break I got was playing 3 handed when I called a massive all in with 99 and beat AQ. When we started heads up play I had 600,000 chips to my opponents 300,000. After 10 or 15 hands I knew it would take a massive run of bad luck to lose against this guy. He was clearly nervous and I quickly ground him down to under 200K. On the final hand I reraised him all in with KJ suited, he called with A5 and I made a flush.

Like I said 1st place was little over $4,500!

At the same time I was also in a $55 tournament that started at 9:00 with 236 players. I made the final table of that one too. The first tournament wrapped up at about 12:30, but this one lasted until 2 am. I can't say I recall many of the details, but I know I finished 3rd which paid about $1,200.

All together it was about a $7,000 day!

Reflecting on the 2010 WSOP

I'm a big sports fan. With the odd exception of sports that involve goals (specifically hockey and soccer), I love it all. While most of my favorite players are big names, I certainly find myself rooting for the underdog more often than not.

In the past week two unknown players have had maybe their greatest moments on the big stage. In the U.S. open a Frenchman named Havret who was ranked 391st in the world had a chance to win on the last few holes. In the end a top 20 player came through (like they usually do) and won the tournament.

In tennis 148th ranked Nicholas Mahut was part of the longest tennis match in professional history, lasting more than 11 hours over the span of three days (the match was stopped because of darkness twice!). It was just a second round match in a tournament with 128 players and Mahut was unable to outlast his opponent. But he was still part of the biggest story at Wimbledon this year and part of a match that will be remembered for years to come.

How do you think those guys feel right now? They can't feel bad. But I'm sure playing a practice round to get ready for the next cookie cutter golf tournament or hitting backhands to gear up for some second rate tennis event is not enough the get the juices flowing for these guys.

That's a little bit how I feel right now. I got relatively close to something special at this years WSOP. I was a long way from winning an event, but making day 2 three times I wasn't that far from making a final table which in and of itself is a big deal.

More to the point it was 9 days where I was part of something big and the chance of something big happening was right there, just out of my grasp. It was exhausting, but exhilarating.

When the time came to head home, I was more than ready. I missed my family desperately and my day to day life is great on just about every level. But it's not so easy to step out of the bright lights and just snap back into the normal routine.

I'm sure that Havret and Mahut are already thinking about next year (or the next major). And however hard I try, I can't help but do the same.

WSOP Main Event Satellites

I'm in a $370 Satellite on Pokerstars and a $530 Satellite on AP. They're both about an hour into the action and I'm off to a good start in both. Check twitter (dave_huff) for live updates. Or if you want to watch I'm acesedai on Pokerstars and acessedai on Absolute.

2010 WSOP Final Thoughts

I ended up making a small profit of about $800 in the 2010 WSOP, but that was more than eaten up by the expense of 10 days in Vegas.

Even still this year was a success. I played better than I ever have at the WSOP and I made it to day 2 in three of the four tournaments I entered. While it would have been great to catch one or two more breaks and go a little (or a lot) deeper I'll have nothing but good memories of the tournaments I played.

I think I also got a small confidence boost from how well I played against the strongest competition. I got the best of a few world class players and instead of thinking I have what it takes to make a final table or win an event, I know I have what it takes.

I now have 6 WSOP cashes on my resume and I'm already looking forward to next year.

In the mean time I'm going to take a few shots to qualify for the main event. I'll be playing a $700 and a $370 qualifier on pokerstars and a $530 on Absolute over the weekend. If I can catch a few breaks my 2010 WSOP might not be over just yet!

WSOP $1,500 HORSE Day 2 Recap

As per usual, I find myself a little blogged out at the end of a series of tournament that required tons of blogging. As a result I'm going to make this quick.

I got off to a terrible start on Day 2, despite being at a great table. I had 19,000 when I looked at my first hand of the day and at the end of that hand I had about 14,000. Not what I was hoping for!

It was all down hill from there. I won a few small pots here and there, but after close to two hours I was down to 5,000 chips playing Omaha with 400/800 blinds. On my final hand I found myself all in on the turn. Another player was also all in and when the two of us and a third player turned up our cards I saw that if I could hit a heart (any heart - amazingly there was no low draw and neither of my opponents had a full house draw that would be completed by a heart) I would scoop the entire 20,000 chip pot. A black river card put an end to my tournament.

I finished about 170th of 827.

WSOP $1,500 HORSE Day 1 Recap

We started this $1,500 HORSE tournament with 824 players each with 4,500 chips. This is a ton of players for a HORSE tournament!

Looking around many of the top pros were mixed into the field, but there were also a slew of older players who tend to be much weaker than the players in their 20's and 30's. Why is that? We'll when you're 22 and you have no one but yourself to take care of, you have roommates, and can live on the cheap it's easy to get into playing poker for a living (like I did). But when you're 55 and you have kids in college, a house and a car payment, it's always just going to be a hobby.

Of course there are plenty of online no limit hotshots who don't know shit about playing HORSE who are even better to play against, but also a little more volatile.

I got off to very slow start in this one. I was between 2,500 and 3,500 chips for pretty much the first 4 hours of play. I won a few split pots during that time, but no big pots or even significant pots at all.

After the dinner break we started level 5 and during levels 5 and 6 I made up for the first 4. By the even of level 6 I was up to 12,000. A few minutes into level 7 I was up to 16,000. Average at that point was about 7k or 8k so I was really liking my chances.

Then I went stone cold. I couldn't make anything and of course the stakes kept getting higher. The end of level 8 which would mark the end of day 1 was looming and I thought the worst thing would be to make it to day 2, but have almost no chips. My plan was to fly home Thursday afternoon and another day in Vegas would mean added expense and more time away from my family who I'm missing like crazy right now.

At the same time if I had 4,500 chips they were still worth $1,500 and even if I had 2,250 (an amount I could get all in before the flop) the were worth $750. That's not the kind of money you want to just throw away, but I was in go for it mode as we approached the end of day 1.

I found myself with 3,500 chips playing hold'em (the H of the HORSE) with the blinds at 300/500 (stakes of 500/1,000) and I picked up 22 in middle position. Normally I would fold here, but I knew at most we'd be looking at 5 or 6 more hands before the end of the day.

So I raised, got reraised, the big blind came along and I made it 4 bets. Now 2,000 of my 3,500 was in the pot and I was committed. I prayed for a deuce on the flop and instead got J 8 5. I bet anyway and both opponents called. The turn was a 9 and I went all in for my last 1,000 getting one call. I was against AT who shockingly missed all of his 14 outs.

This old timer in seat 1 gave me a little smile and I said "The worst thing is to make it to day 2 with no chips."

Two hands later he raised and I looked down at JJ. I three bet it and he four bet it it. I thought he had a real hand, but I knew he was also thinking about those deuces. Amazingly the flop came down jack high! BOOM! Now I was really hoping he had something. He bet the flop, I raised him, and he three bet me. Ah ha! I'm going to punish this guy!

The turn was a queen, he bet, I raised, he reraised, and I raised again. The river was a brick and he bet out into me! I put in my last 1,600 and he called. He rolled over AA like he thought he was getting that pot, but when I showed him my JJ he knew that he'd over played it.

There were 19,000 chips in that pot and two hands later I bagged them up. They'll be there waiting for me at the Rio at 3. Right now I'm in 79th of 280. 80 spots pay.

After three day 2's let's hope I can make my first day 3!!!

WSOP $2,500 6-max recap

I finally found myself with some time to kill, so after much delay here is the recap of Event #26!

As I mentioned briefly before, I got off to an INSANE start in this tournament. I've never picked up so many chips so quickly at the WSOP despite the fact that just about every player at our table for the whole day was a pro of some kind.

1,254 players entered this one and we started with 7,500 chips each. For me the first two hours were about chopping out small pots. I made a few check raise bluffs, won the blinds plenty of times, and picked up some chips with standard continuation bets. I was at 11,000 after two hours.

Then I got involved in one of three huge pots that I'd play against Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet. Jon has won a couple million dollars in online tournaments and wrote a book with John "pearljammer" Turner. I've played against him many time online and he's a very strong player. He also seemed like a good dude from the little interaction we had.

In the first hand blinds were 75/150 and apestyles raised to 400 in the cutoff. He'd been very active this level, always making it 400 to go. I looked down at KT suited (a hand I would have folded against someone playing fewer hands) and raised to 1,200. Apestyes just called which turned out to be a big mistake for him!

The flop came down T T 3 giving me trips! Now I just had to hope he had something. I bet 2,000 into the 2,600 chip pot and got called. The turn was a queen, I bet 2,500, and again I got called. The river was a blank and I looked over at my opponent's stack. A quick glance told me he had 5K-6K chips. I thought if I put him all in he might fold, but if I bet a little less I'd get paid off since I was pretty sure he had something at this point. In the end I settled on 3,500 and I got a call with body language that said "I think, I'm beat, but I can't fold this hand." Later unprovoked when he was listing some other complaints it came out that he had AA on this hand!

Then I went on a busting streak. KT flopped a ten vs my QQ and was out the door. AK missed against my 88. And then AK hit for me against 88! HA!

Just before dinner I got involved in another big one where I put the screws to Apestyles. Although I had him down to about 2,000 chips after I cracked his AA, he built it back up to about 11,000 just so I could take some more from him!

The blinds were 200/400 with a 25 chip ante and he raised to 900 which seemed to be a standard raise at our table for some reason. I looked down at A7s and reraised him to 2,500. This is not normally a play I'd make, but I had a tight image and three times as many chips as he had so I figured I'd push him around. Well he had a strong hand again and this time he reraised me to 4,500. I would have folded to anything over 5,000, but I was getting 4 to 1 on my money, in position so even though I was sure to be dominated I decided to see the flop.

The flop came down queen high and to my shock Apestyles checked. What? He had less than a pot sized bet left and to me this meant that he had a rock solid hand (QQ, KK or AA) and was trying to get me to take a shot at the pot. But I wasn't biting. I checked behind him and the turn was an ace. Now this was getting interesting!

I could tell from his very subtle, but visible reaction that he didn't like the ace and he checked again. Or there was some chance he had AA and just made top set. At this point I figured him for KK. Given that, there was no reason for me to bet. If he has KK he folds, and if he has a monster hand I'm cooked so why bet?

The river was a brick and he checked again. Now I thought "how much is the most that I can bet that he'll call me with KK?" I decided on 3,000 and sure enough he called me and he did in fact have KK! Again I had him on the ropes, but he'd be up to 30,000 chips by our next confrontation! Dammit Apestyles why can't I kill you!

At the dinner break (after 6 levels) I had 45,000 which was six times what we started with. After level 8 I had 67,000! It was so much fun! I was blowing people to pieces and I was sure to be in the top 10 if not the top two or three chip stacks in the entire tournament.

Then I had two major miscues. On the first Apestyles got his revenge. The blinds were 300/600 and he raised to 1,400. I had AK and made it 3,500 to go. I'd actually been reraising him a lot all day and getting away with it. A few hands earlier I'd made the exact same play with 99 and won the pot on the flop. So when he made it 8,000 I thought there was some chance he was just getting fed up with me reraising him left and right. I had AK so I figured I'd put him to the test. I moved all in and he called me in a microsecond and rolled over AA! ACK! I was about 7% to win and I didn't. I lost 30,000 chips on that pot!

To make matters worse I lost another 20,000 with AQ to another guy who had AA a little while later! Bastards!

Now I was feeling like I'd totally blown it. After having 70,000 chips at my peak I was down to less than 20,000 with less than an average stack.

Sometime later 2006 WSOP player of the year Jeff Madsen got moved to our table, directly to my left. Jeff is a very aggressive player and I knew he'd be big trouble if he got some chips. The good news was he only had about 10,000. The better news is shortly after we started level 9 I took him out. I raised with AK suited, he moved all in with QQ and I flopped an ace. Bye Jeff!

I was hoping to get someone soft to fill that seat since the rest of my table was a bunch of ball busters. Instead I got Shaun Deeb who either wins or finishes in the top 3 on the yearly pokerstars tournament leader board every year. Can you imagine how hard that is? It's not like he got hot for a week and won the weekly tournament leaderboard on some bullshit site. He's had great results year after year on pokerstars. Well I busted his ass too.

In that hand the blinds were 400/800 and I raised to 2,500 with AQ from the small blind. He thought for about 2 seconds and moved all in for 28,000 from the big blind. I knew that couldn't be a strong hand so I called for about 28,000. He rolled over 55 which meant he was ahead. The flop came down K T 4 with two spades (I had the Q of spades). The turn was another spade. I saw the river was a 2 and I was like "fuck, I'm out! Oh shit it's a spade! It's a spade! I'm the king of the world! Suck it Deeb!" We counted down our stacks and I had him covered by 100! Ha!

I finished day 1 with 46,400 chips. 154 players made it through the day and 126 spots paid. I was in 90th place going into day 2 and my plan was to play tight until we made the money and then go for it.

As you may have seen in my Day 2 preview I got a great table draw. My table for day two had one player with about 50K and everyone else between 20K and 30K. When I got to the table it was better than I hoped. It seemed like only one of these guys was a strong player. But 15 minutes in, just when I was getting pumped about my chances of smashing these jokers, they broke our table.

My new table was much tougher and I saw Apestyles sitting in seat 6 with over 100,000 chips! Why aren't you dead Apestyles?

Despite my plan to play conservatively I couldn't help but be aggressive. And it didn't work out. The blinds were 600/1,200 and the under the gun player raised to 3,000. I was in the big blind with 44 and I called. The flop came down 9 9 3 which meant if my opponent didn't have a pocket pair or a 9 I was ahead. I checked, he bet, and I decided to put him to the test. When the hand started he had 28,000 and I had 50,000. We were 10 players away from the money and while I was hoping he didn't have anything, I thought there was some chance he might fold a strong hand given the circumstances. Sadly he called me with TT and I was down to 22,000.

Right after that I was moved to an even tougher table where everyone but one guy had over 100,000 chips!

Happily I was still able to cruise into the money. Actually it took quite a while, but not too many hands. When we got down to 128 players they started hand for hand play. The way that works is every table plays one hand and then the dealer stands up so the people in charge can see that the table is done with the hand. Once one hand has completed at every table they deal another one. And so on until we make the money. The do this to prevent people from stalling. With 22 tables it took at least 5 minutes for every hand and it took over an hour to go from 128 players to 126.

The very first hand after we made the money I picked up KK for the first time in the tournament! A player with 66 raised, I reraised and he put me all in. That had took me up to about 37,000.

The blinds were 800/1,600 at this point so I had plenty of chips to work with, but then one of those situations where there's nothing to do but go broke came up. I got dealt AKs, raised, got reraised by the big blind, went all in and he had JJ. I couldn't win this race and I was out.

I finished 98th which paid $5,211. A strong finish which gives me two cashes in three tournaments at the 2010 WSOP. Not to shabby!

When I went to get paid out, there was Apestyles at the cage getting his money too. I guess someone had finally taken him out. Nice playing with you Apestyles.