O-Poker

EDIT: I just noticed that this is my 500th blog post - pretty freaking crazy. I started posting after Loopy set up the blog and never stopped. What the hell ever happened to Loopy anyway?

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WSOP

I'm getting pumped. I probably won't be able to play poker for several days since I am flying out of town tonight on business and don't get home until Friday night. Surprisingly, this doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Knowing that LV is only 6 days away is keeping me going. As stressful as the next few days might be, I know that a nice well deserved WSOP vacation is right around the corner. Las Vegas + Poker + WSOP = Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

I can't get enough of the WSOP coverage. I've been reading a lot blogs, poker sites and listening to a ton of podcast.

I have a bunch of cell phone #s and need to get several more. Right now, I'm leaving my plans the way that they should be on a vacation - playing it by ear. The only real plans that I have is to play in the $2k NL WSOP event on Thursday (or the $5k on Wed if I manage to win a ton of lammers.)

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BBT3

I didn't do so well in the BBT3 in the last month of tourneys. I had a chance to catch Lucko, LJ, and RR in our sidebet, but fell apart in the last several tourneys. I did win my sidebet with Fuel, so I broke even on the sidebets. I still don't know how I managed to finish second in overall money won during the BBT3 - coming in 2nd in the 1st BBT3 Big Game probably played the biggest role in that.

I finished 14th in the overall standings which was enough to win a FTP custom jersey. I'm still debating on which one to buy, but am leaning towards the baseball jersey. I have no idea where I would wear that thing without feeling like a complete tool.

The TOC is on Saturday - maybe I can luckbox my way to a WSOP ME seat or a WSOP bracelet event package. The field is very tough, so I'll need all the luck I can get. I want to handicap the field, but I don't even know where to start. (I'll leave that to the experts.)


Hope everyone has a great week.

Weeeeeeeeeee!!! After coming in 2nd to Scott Fischman in the 1st BBT3 event and coming in 3rd in another TOC event, I was starting to give up hope of winning a TOC seat. That all just changed as I took down the MATH. I went from last in chips at the Final Table to having more chips than the remaining 3 players combined. I finally got heads up with PokahDave and had about a 9-1 chip lead. We had been at the same tables almost the entire tourney and had been beating up on each other. When he clawed back to only a 2-1 deficit, I offered a deal - even chop of the money and I get the TOC seat since he already had a seat. He took me up on it and I finally had my TOC seat. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!


I've got to go to bed now, I'm beat after a crazy day at work. I'll add some of the luckbox hands and non-luckbox hands tomorrow.

(I had a weekend trip report post in the works until work got in the way. I'll finish it up tomorrow or Wednesday)

Holy Crap!! Lucko is on fire!! Two BBT3 wins in one week!! CONGRATS!! I hope he plays all the Sunday Majors this weekend and rides that hot streak to a huge score.

There is now one less seat in the BBT3 TOC. I hope Fuel didn't make too many side bets with Lucko.

Also, a big congrats to Smokkee for locking up his seat the other night. I'll be rooting for him to take down a WSOP package in the TOC in June.

Uggh!! There are only 55 chances to win your way into the BBT3 TOC freeroll for 2 WSOP main event packages. I'm sure I won't be able to play them all, so I have mixed emotions about coming in 2nd place to Scott Fischman. The 2nd place payout of $1,200 is nice for a $75 buy-in tourney. It is also good to jump out to a huge head start in my $250 bet with Fuel for most money won in the BBT3, but I really want to get into the TOC and felt like I had a great shot last night.


At the beginning of the final table the chip stacks were as follows: (I commented early on that I got a great seat draw - having both Hoy and Fischman to my right)

Seat 1: HAGBARD_III (61,313)
Seat 2: lifesagrind (20,879)
Seat 3: hoyazo (88,640)
Seat 4: Scott Fischman (135,635)
Seat 5: cmitch (47,149)
Seat 6: Julius_Goat (34,572)
Seat 7: katitude (28,540)
Seat 8: Schaubs (94,302)
Seat 9: noair (13,970)

Scott Fischman had Hoy and I massively out chipped once we were 3 handed:

Seat 3: hoyazo (85,140)
Seat 4: Scott Fischman (341,069)
Seat 5: cmitch (98,791)

Things were going along smoothly until I misplayed a hand against Fischman when we were (Hoy, Fischman and I) were 3 handed. (see hand #6 below). I wound up hu with Fischman after SF's A10 beat Hoy's A9 - not much he could do there.

Some key hands

Hand #1 - I couldn't bring myself to laying this one down. I had mentioned that I laid down a big hand earlier and the shove screamed two big cards or 22-JJ.

Hand #2 - It is easier to re-steal when you have a big stack. I don't remember if we were ITM yet. My raise basically makes it look like I am willing to get all in for stacks here.

Hand #3 - Our table was playing pretty tight (unlike the Hoy/Fischman table where it seemed like there was an all-in every other hand) so I felt like a raise in this spot with JJ is either getting shoved on or they are folding. In some spots I might flat call pf but this seemed like the best way to play it.

Hand #4 - I think this was the first hand I played at the final table. I didn't raise pf because Fishcman had shown that he was willing to shove to pf raises. I didn't want to raise pf and have to decide on calling a shove. Call me crazy, but I like to play poker post flop, especially when I have position, with a fairly well disguised hand, on an aggressive player. I felt like SF was on a flush draw or a straight draw and thought the smallish turn bet (as opposed to shoving) might induce a shove. If I shoved, I'm pretty sure that he would have folded a draw. Fuel made a comment about SF's blocking bet on the river. I don't really like the bet. I was an unknown player to him - we hadn't been at the same table before the FT. I am not folding anything to a 2,400 bet into a 50k pot. IMO, it is just giving me a few extra chips. I could see it being a better play if he had even a tiny piece of the board, but he can't beat anything in my range. I think that betting 2,400 in that spot is pretty much the same as check folding. No reason for me to raise because only a better hand would call.

Hand #5 - I felt like this was a +EV call. I would be interested to hear other people's opinions. He had just shoved the previous hand and everyone folded.

Hand #6 - Three handed. This felt so much like a busted draw or a stone cold bluff. I was very wrong.

Hand #7 - Final hand. His bets felt a little "Fischy." I should have gone with my gut and folded on the turn.

I had a great time last night. Hopefully, I'll find my way to a BBT3 win in the near future.

Wow!! There is a lot going on at FTP.

Their new software upgrade just came out. The biggest additions are Tourney Dollars (T$) with an instant conversion to cash for a 5% commission (similar to 3rd pokerstars T$ exchange sites), auto top off of your stack in cash games (weeeeeee), no chat in all-ins or larger tourney final tables, Bracelet Races/WSOP packages starting soon, etc, etc.

Click here for a link to FTPDoug's FTP Answers 2/28 thread on 2+2

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BBT 3 is on!!!



Another big WOW!!! What can I say? Al has gone overboard in getting you truly awesome prizes for the Battle of the Bloggers 3!!!

Here is a sampling of the prizes in this series (straight from his blog):

"- 100% of the money used for tournament buyins will stay with that prizepool (with the exception of knockout tournaments). Full Tilt is not taking extra juice from the buyins to fund these prizes. That means we are going to have some monster payouts in each individual tournament on top of the prizes provided by FTP.

- We are going to be tracking the leaderboard throughout the entire challenge and will be paying out money plus FTP swag to the top players at the end. Below is how we will payout the final standings at the end of the challenge ($2,600 in prize money):

1st - $750
2nd - $600
3rd - $500
4th - $400
5th - $350
6th - 20th on the leaderboard will receive an FTP Jersey

Below is the formula we are using for the point system, top 25% of each tournament field will receive leaderboard points:

Points = 10 * [sqrt(n)/sqrt(k)] * [1+log(b+0.25)]

Where:
n is the number of entrants
k is the place of finish (k=1 for the first-place finisher, and so on)
b is the buy-in amount in dollars.

The leaderboard will be updated daily then loaded on BBTChallenge.com and on FTP's promotion page.

- In addition to tracking the overall leaderboard, we will also have a Player of the Month for March, April and May. The player who earns the most points during the events of that month will win one of the $2,000 WSoP Bracelet packages.

- The rest of the seats will be awarded at the end of the challenge in a Tournament of Champions. For the ToC We will be awarding the two Main Event seats and the remaining two $2,000 WSoP Bracelet packages. All you need to do in order to qualify for the Tournament of Champions is win one of the scheduled events during the next three months."

No way am I ever folding KK in a winner take all tourney. Quick was a lot better than finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: cmitch ($3,020)
Seat 2: Astin ($1,635)
Seat 3: Fuel55 ($2,610) -
Seat 5: PirateLawyer ($5,940) -
Seat 6: huntsvegas ($3,030) -
Seat 7: XxMagiciaNxX ($2,720)
Seat 8: cracknaces ($4,245)
Seat 9: whiskigrl ($3,800)


PRE-FLOP:

PirateLawyer posts small blind $30
huntsvegas posts BIG blind $60
Dealt To: cmitch


FOLD XxMagiciaNxX
FOLD cracknaces
FOLD whiskigrl
RAISE cmitch ($180)
FOLD Astin
FOLD Fuel55
CALL PirateLawyer ($150)
RAISE huntsvegas ($600)
CALL cmitch ($420)
CALL PirateLawyer ($420)


FLOP:

Pot: $1800


CHECK PirateLawyer
BET huntsvegas ($1000)
RAISE cmitch ($2420)
FOLD PirateLawyer
CALL huntsvegas ($1420)


TURN:

Pot: $6640




RIVER:

Pot: $6640




SHOWDOWN:
cmitch:

huntsvegas:


huntsvegas collected $6640 from main pot with two pair, Aces and Jacks

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $6 Rake: $0

Final Board:


Seat 1: cmitch showed [Kh Kc] and lost with two pair, Kings and Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3020)
Seat 2: Astin didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: Fuel55 button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: PirateLawyer small blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-600)
Seat 6: huntsvegas big blind showed [Ah Ac] and won 6,640 with two pair, Aces and Jacks - Net Gain/Loss: ($3620)

Seat 7: XxMagiciaNxX didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 8: cracknaces didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 9: whiskigrl didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

The BBTwo Aussie Millions TOC Freeroll is right around the corner (tomorrow night).

For the few people reading this that may not know the details, the Battle of the Bloggers Two tournament of champions is a 27 player freeroll that awards one $18k Aussie Millions package to the winner. All the entrants won one of the 27 BBTwo tourneys plus two bloggers won their way in through writing a future trip report (2 people also won 2 events). FTP was awesome enough to add the $18k package thanks to Al.

I don't have high expectations. Most of the players are pretty good and I am very rusty when it comes to tourneys. I've only played about 40-45 online tourneys since the beginning of October (12 of those over the last few days) and most of those were satellites, BBTwo tourneys, or several smaller buy-in tourneys at the same time.

I started thinking about what kind of strategy I should apply to the game and then said WTF am I thinking. I never go into a tourney with a specific strategy. Why would I change that now? Instead I try to the most optimal way based on my table conditions - players at the table, position against the tight, loose, weak, good players, etc, etc. So depending on the table conditions, I may appear to the be the tightest nit or the loosest donkey and they may change throughout the tourney.

I think that I will have a great chance if I make it to the final 5 or 6 with an above average stack, because a lot of the players don't have as much short handed experience as I do (with a few exceptions). I'm not going to bitch about bad beats, suckouts, bad calls, bad plays, horrible players when/if I get knocked out. That is part of the game and there has been way to much blogger drama lately.

I was thinking about doing a last longer for the TOC, but I didn't get much response to an email that I sent out last night so it is looking like a no-go.

Handicapping the Tourney
I started to copy the names of the players in the tourney and was going to try to put odds to each player, but I realized I would only be able to do this for a handful of players. There are a lot guys that I haven't played too much against.

Who is going to win? Who are your top three?

I would have to say cracknaces, lucko, and xxmagicianxx have the best chance. They are all great tourneys players - even though Chad seems to think you have to be a huge luckbox to win it. Who are your top three?

Links to other bloggers handicapping of the TOC:

Chad - Funny comments about each player's chances. Astin FTW!!!

Vinnay - Good well thought out breakdown of each player that you may agree or disagree with. BTW, Alan and I are not the same person, but I take that as a compliment.

Hoyazo - He hasn't posted his odds yet, but I think there is a 99.9999% chance that he makes a post about it today. (assuming he doesn't put up another Days of Our Lives post)

Julius_Goat - He breaks down the players that he knows. I can see how he wrote himself into the tourney.

....let me know of any others.

They are real simple.

1. Play more hands (get around to finishing the 25k hands of 1/2nl - currently only at 6.5k)
2. Win rate of 5PTBB/100
3. Play a few more tourneys.
4. Win the BBTwo TOC freeroll trip to Australia.
5. Have Fun Playing!!

Oh yeah and another one.....try not to envy all the bloggers in Vegas this week. I'm looking forward to reading about the trip.

It was a tough final table, but I somehow managed to squeak my way to a win after a long final 3 with surflexus and blinders.

I'm excited about playing in the BBToo TOC Australian Freeroll.

I'll try to post more tomorrow. I've got a long day of work tomorrow - gotta head to bed

I finally went and bought a new 24" Widescreen Samsung monitor on Friday and my eyes are loving it. I had been playing 4-6 tables on my Dell 17" WS laptop. What a difference. It also has the added feature of making me play at the desk instead of laying back in the recliner.

I played around with 6 tables on it a little and it is like night and day. I don't have to strain my eyes to see the cards, bet amounts, PAHUD stats, etc.

I didn't use it as much as I would have liked because I played a couple of the FTOPS events this weekend and decided not to play more than two tables and no cash games while playing in the FTOPS and the Gators played South Carolina on Saturday night. While I was playing the FTOPS #4 PL Holdem tourney, I made the table full screen - pretty cool but definitely overkill.

As far as the FTOPS goes, I finished in the 300s with 216 getting paid in FTOPS #4 PL Holdem and in the 1,000s in FTOPS #7 NL Holdem with 516 getting paid. I'm not sure if I will play any more of the FTOPS events. I feel like I wasted time that I could have spent playing cash games, but of course the occasional big score changes that perception quickly.

We have stuff going on almost every night this week, so I'm not sure how much poker I will get in. I'm going to play in the Mondays at the Hoy tonight , but no Mookie or Riverchasers.

Good Luck and see you at the tables.

BBTwo

I finished 5th in the first installment of BBTwo (yeah, I'm using it - I don't care Trip). I sucked out with JJ against KK early on to build a nice stack and nothing really else exciting happened until the final table. I called a short stack's shove with 77 and he had QQ. Then I shoved with KQs and was called by 88. It would have been nice to win, but I'm happy with how I played.

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Cash Games

It is good to be back at my regular game. After an extended stay at 1/2nl, I made my way back to 2/4nl this week. I even got used to playing 6 tables. I started out on fire and finished up with a 3,500 hand break even stretch. I'm not going to complain about running over 9 ptbb/100 over 8k hands though.

2/4nl is 10 times more aggressive than 1/2nl. As a result, there are a lot more marginal spots and increased variance. I'm very happy with my results my first week back.

I tried out a few different things here and there and will probably tweak some aspects a little over the next few weeks. I'll keep experimenting with the things that seemed to be working and try out a few new things.

I'll post some hand histories later in the week.

I finished 2nd in the Mookie last night. I had a pretty good lead heads up against Bayne, so I felt confident that I would take it down. It wasn't meant to be though. Bayne was a tough heads up opponent and I had to constantly switch up my play. He was shoving all-in just about every time that I limped. I was waiting to set him up with a big hand. Unfortunately when I finally got AK and limped in, he checked behind. My flop bet took it down.

Bayne got about even in chips when I got all in on an Ace high flop with Ax against his set of 7s. I was able to start to regain the chip lead until we got all in with my AQ vs. his 99. (No way either of us were getting away from those hands heads up.) The board was no help for me and I was left with around 12k to his 110k +/-. I felt like I still had a chance if I caught a couple of hands - definitely didn't give up. I chipped up a little to above 20k. A few hands later, we got all in preflop again. This time my short stacked 99 lost to his A3. GG and well played Bayne.

I am guessing that I have probably made a bigger jump this week than anyone in the Battle of the Bloggers Leaderboard. I was sitting in 32nd place on Monday morning and 21st after my win on Monday night (highest ranked with less than 20 tourneys played). I am curious as to where I stand after my 2nd place last night.

I guess I let Waffles down, since he had picked me as one of his horses on BuddyDank Radio. BTW, I listened to BuddyDank radio for the first time on Monday and really enjoyed it. Great show!!!!

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How Would You Play it? (Results)

The Hand from yesterday's post
I am dealt JJ in mid position and raise to $80 to thin the field. I get 4 more callers including Lucky, Seat 5 (who is steaming), Seat 10 (in the BB) and Seat 1.

Flop comes 8d9d3h. Seat 10 opens for $200. I am 100% certain that I have him beat and pretty certain that he is on a flush draw. Seat 10 has about $200 behind. Seat 1 calls his last $135. I'm guessing Seat 1 has either a flush draw, straight draw, or 1 pair and 1 over. (Really not too concerned about his hand.)

I have a decision to make. Seat 5 is beaming like he has monster. Seat 5 has around $1,300. Lucky looks like he wants to call. Lucky has about $3,500.

I have around $2,100.

What is your play here?

A. Flat Call (and the draws a chance to catch)
B. Raise (if raise what amount? enough to put Seat 10 all-in or more?)
C. Fold

Results:

I may have steered everyone in the same direction with my "Seat 5 is beaming like he has monster" comment - not sure.

My thinking was that I only had $80 invested in the pot. I really thought I had the best hand, but wasn't sure. I decided to let it go, mainly because of the two big stacks behind me. If they weren't there I was going to put Seat 10 all-in.

I folded. Seat 5 shoved all-in. Lucky folded. Seat 10 folded instead of putting in his last $200. He said that he folded 77. Talk about a horrible fold. He had to call a little less than $200 into a $1,135 pot.

Hands:

Seat 10 - folded 77
Seat 1 - KQ (no diamonds)
Seat 5 - Ad10d

The turn and river came 5,6. Not only did the guy that folded 7s fold the best hand, but he also would have made a straight. Ace high took down the pot.

I don't regret folding. I don't like results oriented thinking. If I flat called, Seat 5 was shoving and I would have to fold. If I raised, Seat 5 was shoving and I might have called or might have folded depending on the bet amounts.

This hand really got me thinking about how you play against live bad players that don't understand the value of certain hands. It isn't a big deal in cash games, but it a tourney/sng, especially in a home game turbo format, bad players can actually gain a little bit of an edge over a better player that isn't catching any cards. If you get a good read on a poor player that doesn't understand the value of his hand, he may be giving off signals of a strong hand when he has a draw since he may see his draw the same as the nuts. I know some players that think even a weak flush draw or a straight draw is just about the nuts. Basically, you might wind up getting in bad or folding a lot of hands to these poor players if they give off the same signals (because they feel like they are all monster hands) with the nuts as they do with 2nd pair or a draw. (I'll expand more on this in a future post.)

WSOP

I am starting to make my WSOP plans. I am currently planning on heading out to Las Vegas on July 5th with my wife and one of her friends. There are two other couples that are considering going also, but I am going to make the plans now since they haven't decided yet. My current thinking is to book the Rio for 7/5/-7/12. My wife and her friend will leave on 7/9.

I plan to play a Super Satellite (or two) on 7/5 if I haven't won my seat to the Main Event before then. I may also play some of the the smaller events that start after the Main Event, if I don't qualify. Does anyone know if they are having additional events that start after the Main Event like last year? I haven't seen any on the schedule.

Are there any deals/sites that I should book my hotel through? I am planning on calling the Rio and seeing what rate they offer vs. the website and then trying to get the WSOP entrant discounted rate. Any idea if I can get the discounted rate if I only play the Super Sats and non-Main Event Tourneys (assuming they have some starting after the ME)?

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Charity Poker

I am heading to a convention this week and they have a poker tourney on Thursday night. I don't know any of the details (prizes, structure, # of players, etc.). The only thing that I know is that there are 80+ people and probably at least 40-50 spouses/significant others goings for a total of 120-130. I am guessing that there will probably be 40-50 in the tourney.

The tourney is scheduled from 10 PM - 12 PM. LOL. So if there are 40 that is one bustout every 3 minutes. It will be fun to see what structure they wind up with.

The funniest thing is there are a couple of people that I work with that think that I will have no problem winning the tourney. In their mind I must be better than all the other people in the tourney because I have won seats/trips to Aruba, WSOP Main Event, and Atlantis in the past. (I try not to discuss any big $$ wins at work) A few of them don't seem to understand the amount of luck that will be involved in doing well in a 2 hour live tourney, no matter how much I try to explain. Oh well, it should be fun donking it up will people that aren't sure whether a straight beats a flush or full house.

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Blogger Poker Tour

I didn't get a chance to play the Mookie on Wednesday, so a few people were able to gain some ground on me. I will probably me able to play the MATH tonight, but not sure about the Mookie or Riverchasers.

I am certain that I will drop several spots unless I have a great showing tonight.