O-Poker

I'm still trying to figure out when I'll head out to the WSOP this year. The Venetian just came out with their Deep Stack Extraganza that is running during the WSOP. I'll cross reference it with the WSOP Schedule some time this week to try to get a better idea of the best time to be out there.

Right now the plan is to head out sometime around my birthday (June 11th). That is usually a good excuse.


From the pokernews story:

The 2009 Deep Stack Extravaganza III schedule:

Day (Date) Buy-In Event

Th (5/28) $250 Super Satellites

F (5/29) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
Sa (5/30) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (5/31) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
M (6/1) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
T (6/2) $330 No-Limit Hold'em

W (6/3) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
Th (6/4) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
F (6/5) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Sa (6/6) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (6/7) $1,070 No-Limit Hold'em

Su (6/7) $550 H.O.R.S.E (4 P.M.)
M (6/8) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
T (6/9) $225 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout
W (6/10) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Th (6/11) $330 No-Limit Hold'em

F (6/12) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Sa (6/13) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (6/14) $1,590 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (6/14) $550 Omaha 8/B (4 P.M.)
M (6/15) $330 No-Limit Hold'em

T (6/16) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
W (6/17) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Th (6/18) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Th (6/18) $550 P.L.O. (4 P.M.)
F (6/19) $550 No-Limit Hold'em

Sa (6/20) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (6/21) $1,070 No-Limit Hold'em
M (6/22) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
T (6/23) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
W (6/24) $330 No-Limit Hold'em

Th (6/25) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
F (6/26) $2,100 No-Limit Hold'em
Sa (6/27) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (6/28) $1,070 No-Limit Hold'em
M (6/29) $330 No-Limit Hold'em

T (6/30) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
W (7/1) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
Th (7/2) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
F (7/3) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Sa (7/4) $1,070 No-Limit Hold'em

Su (7/5) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
M (7/6) $330 No-Limit Hold'em
T (7/7) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
W (7/8) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Thu (7/9) $550 No-Limit Hold'em

F (7/10) $550 No-Limit Hold'em
Sa (7/11) $1,070 No-Limit Hold'em
Su (7/12) $550 Super Satellites
M (7/13) $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em (Championship Event)

-- all starting times noon unless otherwise noted

I have read posts about Tommy Angelo in the past, but never really thought twice about him. Most of the posts were about his book and the unconventional aspects of his thinking. I never made it much past that when reading blog posts about him. I always such assumed his book would be something along the line of don't tilt, play your "A" game, know when to stop playing, be aware of your surroundings, don't play while drinking, play within your bankroll, don't do other things while playing, etc, etc. Basically, I thought his book was just going to reiterate the things that most of us know to do (or don't do) but don't always do (or don't do). I didn't have an open mind and just felt like it was another poker player trying to take an angle to sell his book. It sounded like it was going to be similar to Barry Greenstein's book - Ace on a River.

My thinking changed about 2 weeks ago when I listened to Bart Hanson interviewing him on the Deuce Plays podcast (Part 1). Some of the things that he was saying seemed to really apply to my game and leaks associated with my game. I couldn't get enough of what he had to say and immediately downloaded and listened to Part 2 of the interview followed by the 2+2 podcast interview with him a few months ago. All excellent stuff!!

I ordered his book off Amazon and it should be here today or Monday. I'm guessing I will get more out of his book than I have out of any other poker book.

Definitely more posts to follow on the topic.................

After I busted out of the turbo tourney, I grabbed some pizza, checked out the new areas of the casino, and finally made my way to the cash tables.

Florida law (even at the Indian Casinos) is $100 max buy-in for NL cash games. The Hard Rock runs $1/$2 NL and $2/$5 NL with $100 max buy-ins. The $1/$2 games are usually nit fests and the $2/$5 games are incredibly loose.

I sat down as they were starting a new table. The game started off pretty interesting including one older wanna-be cowboy getting KK 5 times in the first 8 hands - no joke (I'm not sure what the odds of that are). He was down $200 plus because he ran one of them in AA and one into AK (flop an Ace). Needless to say the tilting pseudo-cowboy help make the game good.

Some random happenings of the day:

Slow Rolled

I guess a lot of live players are clueless and I'll write this off as him being clueless instead of an asshole.

I had a decent stack and wound up calling a guy's small bets down with 99 on a KK3K5 board. After I called his 1/12th of the pot size river bet almost certain that he had the King, I waited for him to turn up his hand. He says what I thought was "You got it." So I turn up my 99. He leans over and looks at my cards and then finally turns up his freaking KQ. I never screw around in a cash game (espec low stakes), if I think I have the best hand whether it is my turn to act or not I show it.

I said something along the lines of WTF?

He replied, I had the right to see what you called with and wanted to see it and that he didn't say "you got it" but instead said, "what you got?"

I proceeded to inform him that he was 1st to show and explain to him how much of a ass he was for slow rolling me. The dealer apologized to me for not asking him to show first.

I think the worst part of the situation is that the guy actually thought I had to show first since I called his bet.


Monster Draw

I had a monster hand when I had a decent stack (relative to the start).

My hand - 4c6c in multi-way limped pot and I was on the button

Flop - 3c7c9x
Turn - 3c7c9x4x

I obviously wound up getting all-in on the turn against QQ and wound up missing my 17 outs.

Tiliting Blackjack Players

I had been up and down, but managed to build a decent stack again when a new player sat down at the table. He was clearly in a horrible mood and looked really pissed. After a few minutes he went on and on about how he just "lost fucking $5k playing blackjack in 30 minutes" and he was waiting for a $200 SNG to start. (Oh, by the way, the Hard Rock can run $1k sngs and mtts, but the max buy-in for cash games is $100)

I open raised to $20 pf with AJo and some guy comments about how much I have been raising. Drunk Tilting BJ players (DTBJ) makes the call from the BB. The flop comes all raggy and he leads out for $40. I fold.

The very next hand I look down at AA. The situation couldn't have been any more perfect. DTBJ seems to want to get all his money in the middle and he thinks I am way too loose thanks to another's players comments about my pf raises. I make it $20 to go again. The button calls and DTBJ calls out of the SB. Flop is all rags with 2 clubs. He leads out for $30. I shove. He calls and says, "I AM going to suck out on you." He flipped over 4c8c and hit his flush on the river.

Somehow, this guy had my number. About 10 hands later, my stack was around $180 and he had me covered. I get dealt KK and raise 3 limpers to $35. DTBJ shoves all-in. Everyone else folds. I insta-call. He shows KhTc. The pot gets pushed to him thanks to 3 hearts on the flop and another on the river.

This seemed like a good time to leave the table and grab some dinner. :)

Funny Comments

I heard a few funny things at the table that show why live cash games are so good.

Early in the game. I had been playing pretty tight waiting for a good spot to double up. A girl in middle position open shoved for $45ish. I looked down at TT and I shoved my $120 all-in and a player behind me with more chips said, "Do you want a call?" I replied, "Surrrrrre! The more the merrier!" He thought for a few minutes and called with A9o. After the board ran out and I won the pot, he turned to me and said, "Hey, sometimes that works and you wind up winning a big pot." I think he honestly thought that way, too.

A lady at our table looked extremely tired and proceeded to tell the entire table, "I played all day yesterday until 4:30 AM. I probably should have gotten a couple more hours of sleep but I was so excited to come back and win more money. I won $342 yesterday!!! and couldn't wait to get back!!!!" The best part was she said that she won $342 like you might expect someone to talk about how they won $5k playing cash or came in 1st in a tourney. A few hours later she left after blowing through that $342 plus another $258 (6 buy-ins by my count). Some of her plays included folding the remaining $10 in her stack on the flop when the pot was around $150, shoving all-in over the tightest player at the table with 56 suited, and getting all in with on a flop that contained two spades because she had the Ace of spades and "might make a flush."

I need to play more live poker

I was meaning to put up this post on Monday, but work got in the way. (I can't complain about that.)

We had a baby sitter for the day on Saturday and my wife was heading to an ex-coworker's wedding with the girls, so it was the perfect opportunity to head over to the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa.

Live MTT

Before heading over to Tampa (about 1 1/2 hr drive), I checked the MTT schedule. The only tourney running was a 10 AM $85+$15 MTT. I started a thread on 2+2 to find out just how horrible the structure of that tourney is and how many people usually play in it. I decided to play in it, knowing that it was going to be a turbo, and then play some cash games afterwards. One of the replies to my post summed up the tourney:

"The tournament is a turbo style that has 15 minute levels. It usually gets around 250-300 players in which half of them have received a free buy in from various promotions in the room. It has a patience factor of like negative infinity and I would rather play heads up Casino War for Rollz. Other than that GL."

I was running late and pulled into the Casino parking garage at almost 10 AM on the nose. No worries. I made my through the smoke filled metal warehouse filled with tables and slots between the parking garage and the "real" building and over to the poker room. (The Seminoles only recently made a deal with the governor of FL to have LV style gaming and they had obviously added as much space as possible as quick as possible.) After waiting in line to get my Player's card and then again to register, I found table 3-2 and paid the extra $5 dealer add-on for an additional 1,000 chips. So we started with 3,500 chips and blinds at 25/50. The bad thing was the blinds went up every 15 minutes (ridiculously fast for live play).

The finally tally was 285 players, paying 24 spots, 6k+ for 1st.

To say some of the players were horrible was an understatement. There was a guy that was clearly on a flush draw. I think the pot size was around 800 when he hit his flush on the river. He was first to act and immediately over shoved his remaining 3k into the pot. The other player thought for about 3 seconds and called with 2nd pair. Amazing. The blinds were still 25/50.

I managed to gradually chip up. It really didn't matter how much I chipped up because it quickly became an all-in shove fest. I was up and down. My 99 shove was called by J7o and I lost. I called a shove with 77 and won the race against AQ. I was dealt TT and I shoved over a guy that had been raising a ton. He had a huge stack and it was an incredibly small amount to call my all-in relative to the pot and his stack. He folding and showed the other tow Tens saying that I would have to have a huge hand to make that bet - LOL.

Fast forward to bubble time. I had around 20k chips when we got down to 3 tables and wasn't getting any opportunities to shove. Once we hit 25 players they started going hand for hand (still 15 min blinds levels and we were getting about 1 hand every 4-5 minutes). The blinds went up to 3k/6k right before my BB and I have 15k chips. UTG+1, I folded 25. UTG, I folded 49.

I post 6k of my 15k in the BB. A guy from mid position, that had been pretty active during the bubble period, pushed all-in. It folded around to me. I look down at AJ. My guess is that I am ahead of most of his range, so I called. Unfortunately, he had AQ and I was the bubble boy.

To give you an idea of how much of a turbo this tourney was:

It started around 10 AM with 285 players and I bubbled in 25th at 1:30 pm. I went and grabbed a slice of pizza and checked out some of the other areas of the casino. Around 2:15ish, I went to see who was left and it was over. :)

Low Limit ($100 max buy-in $2/$5 NL) cash game post tomorrow including being slow rolled, monster draws, tilting blackjack players waiting for a SNG, spewing players, and someone mentioning that they made a call because "Hey, sometimes that works and you win a big pot."