Unbearably Bad Poker

So I've been watching a little bit of ESPN's WSOP Main Event coverage from time to time this year, moreso here as we wind down towards the November Nine, and I find myself struck by frankly the same thought that I've had in each and every one of the WSOP Main Events I have ever watched over the past decade or so:

These people absolutely suck shit at poker.

Yeah that's right, I said it. It's true. These people play like absolute anusshit. And that, I think, is being kind.

I mean, this is the biggest tournament of their lives by definition. Each and every one of these guys, once we're down to the final 27 players or so, is for sure playing poker for the most money they have ever played in their lives. There is not just the immediate cash payouts on the line, but the sponsorship opportunities involved with making it to the November Nine final table and with potentially winning the tournament. There is a literal lifetime of playing poker and never having to have a real job again within their grasp. All this and more is at stake here for every single player left as the ESPN coverage worked its way down this week to the final table and a half remaining in the WSOP Main Event.

And what are these players doing with this tremendous opportunity?

They're reraising an early-position raiser preflop from middle position with 42o.

They're calling large bets on the flop for a quarter of their stack with just an overcard and an inside straight draw.

They're reraising allin preflop with A7s.

They're calling allin preflop for 50% of their stack with AQs.

And, my personal favorite, a super aggro guy who's been raising all day raises again preflop, this time with pocket Aces. The guy on the other side of the table reraises with JTs. The guy with AA re-reraises again, a fairly small amount, which itself was a truly bad play because (1) it makes it very, very obvious that he has precisely pocket Aces, and (2) the small raise gives the first player now better than 5-to-1 to call the re-reraise with his JTs, well known as the literal best hand to crack what he now knows his opponent has in pocket Aces.

And then the shithead insta-folds his JTs, getting better than 5 to 1 to call the re-reraise!!!

You could not make this stuff up, and you certainly can't defend these plays from a poker perspective. I've watched the Main Event coverage on ESPN for years, albeit some years more than others. But every single year, my reaction to the quality of play I've seen throughout has been more or less exactly the same.

The Main Event is an absolute donkfest. Sure, good skill will work much better for you than no skill, and a player who has played on the big stage before and knows how to extract chips will always have a better chance of surviving than one who doesn't know shit and is quaking in his boots because of the amount of money on the line. But that increased chance of success is still utterly minuscule, given the field and what it takes to survive the kind of indefensible, thoughtless donkery you will be facing right from the first deal on Day 1A, and clearly lasting all the way up to the final table itself. Last year it was that unthinkable idiot Chino Rheem freaking six-betting allin preflop with Ace-rag with just a few players remaining and directly costing himself probably about $15 million in tournament winnings and sponsorships as a result -- if you don't know you're not only beat but crushed after your opponent re-re-re-re-reraises you preflop and you are holding Ace-rag, then you are absolutely, utterly hopeless as a poker player on the big stage -- and this year the play to make the final table is enough to make just about anyone with half a poker brain scratch their head in amazement.

Somewhere, I imagine Phil Ivey is out there watching this week's coverage with that same absolutely classic look on his face as when Jen Tilly didn't bet her boat on the river against Patrick Antonius and then proclaimed that she thought he had pocket Kings, at 2:03 of the clip below:



All I know is this: the raging clowns playing for the biggest money of their lives at this year's WSOP Main Event are doing nothing to help anyone out there who loves to argue that poker is a game of skill and not luck. Sure, there is more than a little skill involved, but for these players to have lasted this long, and to be playing for this amount of money after surviving some 6600 other entrants, while playing as unmitigatedly horrible poker as they are here even at the end, it's certainly not helping the luck vs. skill debate.

Now That is a Horribad Call

From wsop.com:

7/7/2011 4:04:33 PM PST (about 1 hours and 21 minutes ago) Arieh Eliminated
Preflop action had left three players still in the hand, including Josh Arieh in the big blind. Together the trio had built a pot of 6,100.

The flop came Q64 rainbow, and the small blind checked. Arieh fired a bet of 2,400, then the player in late position raised all in for about 20,000. The small blind got out, and after tanking for a bit Arieh called the raise, committing his entire stack of about 19,000.

Arieh tabled AQo for top pair, but was behind his opponent's 64s. The turn was an 8and river an offsuit 2, and Arieh -- who finished third in the WSOP ME in 2004 -- hits the rail before the end of Level 2.


Wow. I mean, Josh Arieh is a guy who clearly is supposed to see himself as one of the skill guys in the tournament, that we know for sure. And here he is, calling off a raise of 10x his bet on the flop -- representing 190 big blinds at 50-100 -- with just TPTK. That simply makes no sense. What hand is he ahead of here? Seriously, who is pushing in 200 big blinds on a flop raise with KQ in this spot? In a raised pot no less. That's basically impossible. And on top of that, this is just about the dryest flop in the world -- in a raised pot, there's no way someone is semi-bluffing a draw here, so that raise is absolutely screaming "monster!" How Arieh goes down calling like this just over four hours in to the WSOP Main Event is beyond me. Odds are the guy is still tilted after losing a big chip lead late in the 50k buyin championship event the other day. That is just the kind of play that the predators in this thing are waiting for one of the fish at the table to screw up and make.

By the way, I'm just reading the live coverage that we are looking at just south of 900 runners on Day 1A of the WSOP Main Event. Building in for the usual growing crowds as we head into the later Day 1's, I'm thinking this looks more like a 5000-person field than last year's 7300+.

Donkey Island Poker, and Parting Thoughts on This Week's Win

Before I forget, this coming Sunday night is the first of tournament of the Donkey Island blonkament series. Goat will be hosting a regular Sunday night tournament as part of Donkey Island, and although there are only 16 slots in the Donkey Island vote-Hoy-off-as-soon-as-possible thing, the tournaments are open to anyone who wants to play. And this one, just about anyone but Waffles can afford -- it's just one dollah to get in and take your shot!

Sunday, February 13, 2011
Full Tilt Poker
9:30 PM EST
$1 + $1 Rebuy
password: survive

You remember Katitude's old $1 rebuy on Friday nights, right? Wasn't that fun? Now's your chance to come play for cheap with the bloggers again, this Sunday night at 9:30pm on full tilt. Figure, you'll already be down to couple hundred left in the Sunday 750k by 9:30 on Sunday night, so why not hit up the "Private" tab under "Tournaments" and check out "the Goat" as I am affectionately referring to this Sunday night tournament, for the couple of months it is currently scheduled to endure.

OK, with that out of the way, I thought I would close the book on this week's 10k win on pokerstars as I usually do with some final thoughts. This was an odd tournament -- I have gone over the hand histories and the screen shots three times in full now, and something just seems a little "off" about it. I mean, I never had that one huge hand -- flopping a set against AA and KK allin preflop, or turning a flush after getting allin with a couple of guys with solid made hands ahead of me, etc. -- and really, it's hard to quantify or explain exactly what I did in this tournament to run so deep, or even what I avoided from a luck perspective. Although I obviously played very well in the event to last as long as I did and to amass the stack that I had by the end, frankly there wasn't any one hand that I thought I played particularly well or one type of play I repeatedly took advantage of given my image in the tournament. More than any other tournament cash I can recall, this one was more an amalgamation of several things, all coming together at just the right time to make me some money. And if there was one theme that carries through the whole tournament, more than anything else -- as if often the case with my deep mtt runs -- it would be the bad play of my opponents, more than anything specific that I did.

Just look through all my big hands in this thing, every one of which I think I included in my tournament recap post on Wednesday. My first double occurred during Hour 1, when a guy insta-called three bets from me with 99 on an 8-high board, after first calling my preflop reraise. That's just a pure, old fashioned terrible poker play. I mean, this isn't limit poker here. The guy basically busted himself in the first hour of a $109 buyin event when he raised preflop, got reraised -- clearly suggesting a higher pair could be out there -- and then the guy called not one, not two, but three times on a raggy board, never once even raising early to try to find out if his 9s were already beat? It's a terrible play, and I was lucky to be the beneficiary before someone else at the table had the pleasure.

My second big hand literally only ever happened in the first place because of this same opponent's bad play. On that hand, I took AK to a raggy turn card after a raggy flop, and my opponent then led out for 600 chips into a 2700-chip pot. I already thought I could be ahead with my AK in that spot, but to any reasonably-sized bet I would have folded most of the time, no doubt about it. Instead, he bet so small that I felt I actually had odds to stay in. The river comes a King, I lead out big and he folds. More chips for me, in a pot I would literally not even have been in to river the top pair if my opponent makes even close to a good bet there, instead of a terrible one.

My next big hand was when I flopped the set of 5s in a 5-way pot with a flop of 578. This was just more fortuitous than anything else -- I mean, it's an obvious call for me with pocket 5s after four other raise-callers ahead of me before the flop, and then I did the usual donk move of slow-playing the set by just calling a lead bet on that flop. What really got me the chips was when I pushed hugely on the turn (a 2), and the guy called with his pocket 9s. Yes, it was an overpair, and it's not as bad as my first big hand above because there, I had reraised him preflop, all but screaming at him right off the bat that his 9s were no good, but here in the end, the guy still called off his last 7500 in chips with just one medium pair and a one-card inside straight draw on a board that was 5-way to see the flop (a terrible move, generally speaking), with not only a possible straight and myriad straight draws out there, but the turn card also dropping a second flush draw possibility as well for the river. Even if his 9s were ahead at the time -- I bad guess to begin with as it is -- he called off his last 7500 chips with what he had to know were a gillion possible ways to lose. It's another bad play, and ultimately this was the closest thing I had to that big hand I was talking about -- I shot up to the top few spots on the leaderboard early, and it really set me up with a big stack that I never lost again throughout the rest of the tournament. I played the hand about as well as it could be played I think, including the ridiculous push on the turn that I tried hard to be perceived as weak, so I'll take some credit there. But in the end, it was a very light call by a bad opponent that gave me my first true huge stack of the night and empowered me to last the next four or five hours of tough nlh play.

After amassing my huge stack, I took it easy, helped by a lack of any good cardage to play, and after a couple of hours was getting pretty short when I finally needed to get a little lucky, and I did just that when my JTs allin preflop bested an opponent's AQo when down to just under 50 players left in the tournament. It's nowhere near a suckout, but that was my tournament life allin and on the line, with about a 43% chance of winning, and my 43'er came through in a big way, giving me new life and a chance to take a breather from the escalating blinds and antes. I would probably make that play again there given my situation -- my opponent had basically as bad of a hand as I could have ever wanted him to have there with my JTs -- but I needed to get lucky to stay alive, so I can't take a whole lot of credit for some kind of great play on my part for sho.

When we got down to two tables remaining, I had another big stack flip out and call allin preflop on a rereraise with his AJo, which I called with my AKo and held up to climb into first place of 12 runners left. Who knows what happens with my stack if I don't get gifted those chips in that situation? I think I made the right play not laying down my AK in that spot, but again, hard to give myself a lot of credit for getting dealt AK in the final two tables and refusing to lay down to heavy action preflop in a blind vs. blind situation.

And then the same thing happened for me early at the final table, when with 8 players left, I called allin preflop with my JJ vs a medium stack who had TT. He would have played QQ probably exactly the same way there, and when I called I could have seen QQ, or just as easily AK or AQ or even KQs, and lost to any of those hands. Again I think I made the right decision to get allin pre with my JJ there, but the hands just got in ahead at the right times over and over for me in this thing. Similarly when I eliminated a short-stacked #7 when my AK won a race against his TT allin pre.

And that's every big hand I won all through the night in the pokerstars 50k guaranteed. It was three different guys getting allin with medium overpairs on raggy boards against me in bad spots, one horrible bet from an opponent on the turn that priced me in to see a river card that won for me, and one big 43% win with JTs against AQo allin pre, to get to the final table. And then at the final table, someone ran TT into my JJ, and then my AK beat TT in a race. And then the other guy knocked out the last four players while I just sat around, holding my own, until he eventually got heads-up against me and he picked up pocket Aces just when I decided to attack.

So what's the lesson I should take from this? I know I played a great tournament, but I know just as well that this was nowhere near the best I can play. I wasn't presented with nearly enough opportunities, not nearly enough decisions, to really play the best I could play in this. In a sense, the lesson really is kind of like the New York Lottery's constant marketing message -- you can't win if you don't play. That is to say, if you are resigning yourself to the life of mtt grinder, you cannot expect to play a couple large tournaments a week and record a lot of success. As I've said here many times, the name of the game when it comes to mtts is reps. More than anything else, more than making good decisions, more than tournament selection, more than anything else, it's all about reps. Everyone's going to get lucky some night, be it finding pocket Aces eight times in one tournament, be it avoiding the suckouts, or just winning your key races. The key is that you have to be in there playing the game when it's your night. Of course, if you play good poker as opposed to bad poker, you will give yourself many more chances to get lucky than you ever will if you don't play well enough and make enough good decisions to survive long enough to be alive for the luck at the end.

On the day, I did not suck out on anyone in any pot that I could find, though I did win that one key hand with me allin before the flop with JTs against AQo. I took three suckouts, only one of which I showed in my tournament recap, as the other two did not end up being material losses for my stack, but even that number is nothing out of the ordinary for me -- if anything, it's a bit favorable compared to my usual night in a deep mtt run. As I mentioned in my recap post, I ended up the night winning 21 of 24 pots at showdown, whereas I normally spend most of my time winning pots without a showdown and only coming in at around 50% or so in this stat. Part of that is me playing well and consistently getting out of pots when I was not the favorite, but a good deal of that extraordinary win % just goes to show the kind of "luck" I had on this night. Ultimately, I got in as a solid favorite a lot in this, and my favorites for the most part held up. In fact, every time you could fairly say that I needed my favorite to hold up, it held up. Every single time, and then some. When I got in dominating someone preflop, I held. When I many times in this tournament got someone allin against me on the flop with an underpair and an inside straight draw, just an oesd, etc., I held. I won a couple of key races near the end to keep building my stack, and did not lose a race once we got down to the final two tables. All that is how I won this cash, nothing more and nothing less.

And someone also mentioned in the comments that, not only did I win 21 of 24 times at showdown, but I had won 40 hands without a showdown as of right around the beginning of the final table. The comment expressed how large that number was, but in reality, that's pretty much standard for me in any deep mtt run. At the time we had played right around 375 hands, so this amounts to me having won roughly 11% of all hands dealt at my table on the night without a showdown. Admittedly, this is a big number, but it's also the way I play nlh. I raise a lot preflop, and I take down a ton of pots that way before anyone even sees the community cards. And, just like Doyle, I don't like to put my chips into the pot and then not back them up once the flop comes down. It helps that I generally only play strong cards or cards that can easily make a strong hand or draw once the flop falls. But I bet and raise all the time, all over the place, trying to keep the pots small as much as possible unless I'm working on something big in my own hand. In all, winning 40 pots uncontested and another 21 at showdown means I was winning 61 / 375 hands at the time, or 16-17% of the total hands I saw on the night. That number is also high, but, again, it is not that out of the ordinary for me in any deep mtt run. Playing at mostly 9- and 10-handed tables all through the night, to win more than your 10/11% of hands over time is very telling, and in my case it reflects the fact that I play very aggressively pre- and post-flop, and that in this case I amassed a huge stack early and then used it like a club to beat down on the heads of my opponents for long periods of time in the middle of this mtt. I am quite sure there are plenty of people who can win an nlh tournament with a lower percentage of total hands won that that, and to be perfectly honest I've had multi-hour runs in mtts when I am up over 20% of total hands won. A lot of it does ultimately come down to the cards you are being dealt, but in my case whenever I run deep I am usually winning right up there around 10% of the total hands I've seen without a flop. When I am executing my strategy, and my approach to nlh tournaments just right, that's what it looks like.

I wish more people posted their stats from deep mtt runs. I am sure there is much to be gained from analyzing those stats against the type of game that the relevant person plays. But I'm the only person I ever really see posting this sort of thing. Personally, I would really like to know if all the top mtt guys come in around the same area in most of their wins, as far as total percent of flops seen (mine was 12% in this, which as I mentioned previously is right around my average for a deep mtt run), percent of hands defended in the blinds, and total flops seen and total hands won, both with and without a showdown. I do know that winning 21 of 24 showdowns in a tournament is an extreme outlier, but that takes me back to this tournament overall, which in its own way was also an outlier for me as I started off this post saying. It was a little bit of cards for me and a lot of aggression, and a whole whole lot of bad play by others, combined with a whole whole lot of my favorites holding up. Get enough favorites to hold, and almost anybody could make a deep run in an mtt. You just have to find a way to be in there when it's your night to run, and you never know it's your night until the end.

In Poker, So Hot and Yet So, So Cold

Ever wonder why I tend to get kind of short when people talk about how "bad they run"? Why I openly chuckle when I read about someone quitting poker because of how bad they got screwed...in the Mookie last night? Or why I don't have the pitying reaction you're looking for when I read your story about your brutal loss in the first hour of that 1500-person mtt you like to run on occasion?

This weekend of online poker for me had all the answers and then some. I should start by saying that I played some of the best poker of my entire life over the past four nights (I was home from work on Friday, so this was like a four-day weekend for me in terms of being able to stay up late and make some deep runs without having to worry about being up at the crack of dawn to get to the office). But while playing a bunch of really awesome tournament poker enabled me to make deep run after deep run over the weekend -- some of it in some pretty damn big tournaments -- something always seemed to just get in the way to prevent me from making the real big money on the weekend. And the stuff that "just got in the way" this weekend was enough to make most of you yak in your shoes, especially when you consider how much actual cash money I left on the table over the past few days.

So here was this weekend in a nutshell for me.

On Thursday night, I didn't do much in a few of the other tournaments I played, but I made an awesome run in the nightly 25k guaranteed sniper (bounty) on UB. After nearly five hours of play, I'm in 6th place out of 17 remaining. I've spent hours building up a solid image and playing absolutely, positively mistake-free tournament poker to get to this point, and I find JJ in mid-late position and open-raise it up preflop. The guy to my immediate left calls, who had played fairly tight over the past couple of hours at the table with me and the flop comes the almost best possible flop I could imagine:



I mean, sure, everyone wants to flop top set, but when you think about it, when you're this close to the final table and are looking to build an insurmountable stack, and your preflop raise without an Ace gets called, you're almost rather looking to flop second set with an Ace on board so you can feel confident you're going to get paid off by someone holding a big Ace of some kind. I had played with this guy for hours and I was quite sure he does not just call my preflop raise with pocket Aces, so needless to say I was thrilled with my situation there on the flop, and I could begin to smell the 6k+ first prize as I prepared my bet on the flop. I bet around half the flop, wanting to seem a little weak and encourage a raise from a guy with an Ace, and was overjoyed when the guy pushed allin on me without even a moment's deliberation:



Of course I can't fall over myself fast enough to call, and my opponent flips up QTd -- not even an Ace -- for a Queen-high flush draw and an inside straight draw to boot. With my set on the flop, plus all the redraws to a boat even if my opponent makes his straight of flush, I am a 66% favorite here, or 2-1 to amass a monstrous stack and be comfortably in second place of the 17 runners remaining. But then check out the turn (and the river!):



He made his 2-to-1 shot on the turn, and then made it again on the river for good measure, and of course no resuck for me. First prize in this tournament was a little over 6k. I bust in 17th place for a paltry $420 instead after playing absolutely perfect poker and flopping a set on pretty much the most favorable flop for me that I could realistically have imagined.

Moving on to Friday, I should mention that I finished in 22nd out of 1227 players in that same nightly 30k guaranteed tournament on pokerstars that I took 2nd place and 1st place in earlier this month:



My exit here wasn't bad, really. After losing a big race with 77 vs AQ, I was in 18th place out of 22 left when I obviously open-pushed allin with A8o from the hijack, and the cutoff woke up with AK. IGH in 22nd place -- netting under $100 cash in the process as opposed to the first prize of around 6k -- but at least it wasn't a suckout or bad beat that did me in.

Unfortunately, I can't say that about the rest of my weekend's big eliminations.

Also on Friday, I busted from the nightly $75 buyin, 7pm ET 40k guaranteed tournament on full tilt in 26th place, my second-deepest ever run in this tournament, and this one was another of those eliminations that I just cannot deal with very easily. A middle position player who's been highly aggro for hours open-raises it up preflop, and I call from late position holding pocket 7s, feeling pretty confident based on this guy's history that I am ahead here of what is likely a couple of big calls. The flop comes T88, and my opponent insta-pushes allin for the rest of his stack without waiting even half a second after seeing the flop hit the felt, the classic sign that a donkey has missed the flop with two overs, and I think for just a few seconds before calling him down, and I am shown AQ unimproved. I'm in line to have a top-3 stack with fewer than three tables left, but no sooner can I begin to enjoy having outplayed another guy in a huge spot in a big tournament, that the turn comes a Queen:



First prize in this one was around 10k. I bust in 26th place for $220. Who knows how much more Tournament EV I left on the table there, but with a 3rd-place stack and 25 players left, several thousand was entirely likely for me, a heck of a lot better than a measly $220 for my efforts.

Also on Friday night -- a "great" night of poker for me that featured three really deep runs in the same evening -- was UBOC Event #12, the $150 buyin, 75k guaranteed sniper tournament that is right up my alley. I absolutely crushed in this one, taking advantage of two AA's and a KK during the second hour of play to build up a massive stack early, after which I coasted for a good couple of hours before taking advantage of countless Harringbots on my way to another deep run in UB's annual poker tournament championship series. I made so many great plays in this thing, never missing a read and always keeping my aggro in check despite being in the top 10 in chips pretty much from early in the second hour all the way to the 7th hour. I managed to bust 16 people along the way, which I know because you get one of those little bounty windows (and a $15 bounty prize) with every elimination in these sniper events on UB, and I was an absolute terrorist from start to finish through the field of 573 runners who came out to play UBOC #12.

Unfortunately, "finish" for me in this ended up being in 15th place, when I held a 4th place stack and ran KK into the 5th place stack's AA:



KK into AA, with less than two full tables left in one of the annual majors on UB. It is just so sick, especially since I didn't even reraise allin preflop with my Kings, opting instead to wait to see if an Ace fell to give me a way to get off the hand, but the Q22 flop did me no good as it it just about the least scary flop imaginable for a guy holding KK. But alas, this one was in the cards (pun intended) from literally seven hours earlier, and IGH two hands later in 15th place with just $570 to show for my efforts, plus of course the sixteen $15 bounties I picked up along the way. First prize in this tournament was 18k, and I had been in 4th place of 15 left, and was dealt KK to boot. From 18k to $571, with one flip of the cards. In light of all the other stupidity I ran into late in mtt's this weekend, this KK into AA might have been the biggest sickness of them all.

Not to be outdone, on Saturday night I final tabled full tilt's nightly $26, 8pm ET 35k guaranteed tourney for the second time this month, powering my way through more than 1200 runners despite having nothing going on for the first two hours in the event. So we're down to 8 runners left, with me in 6th place of those 8 remaining. The tournament short stack raises the 24k big blind to 72k from early position, and I push my own short stack of 390k allin from the big blind with pocket 7s. I am of course instacalled by AQs. The flop is clean, and the turn is cleaner, and I am just one card away from sitting solidly in 2nd place of 7 remaining in the 35k:



And then, putting a delicious capper on a weekend that was so hot, and yet so, so cold on the virtual felt:



Seven hands later, I'm out in 8th place, for a wonderful consolation prize of $761. Now, 29 buyins is 29 buyins to be sure. But, first prize in this tournament was $8800, and I was one card away from a 2nd-place stack with 7 players remaining. From $8800 to $761, it's hard for me to feel anything but queasy about it even when I re-read this a couple of days later.

I played consistently the best poker I've played over a whole weekend in my entire poker-playing life over the past few days. And while I probably netted around 2k overall over the period, realistically I've got to guess I left what, 15 to 20k in Tournament EV on the table in very real terms over the entire weekend.

So forgive me if I don't necessarily share your opinion that you "run so bad" because of how that $10 90-person sitngo ended for you the other night.

Another Live Tournament Recap

I had the opportunity to play in a Labor Day nlh tournament at a local establishment, and it was one of those funny tournaments where some people just seem like they can do no wrong, no matter how hard they try to play bad poker. There were three tables in play, and one of the last guys to show up at my table -- sitting two seats to my right -- had the look of a guy who plays a fair amount of live poker, so I immediately pegged him as someone who was likely above average compared to the rest of the people at my table. As is often the case with non-casino events (or, frankly, even any random casino tournament with a buyin of less than $300 or so), the people around my table were really, really bad, like, painfully bad. They tipped the strength of their hand regularly, they grabbed for chips about 5 people ahead of when the action was coming to them to raise or call, and most of all, they seemed willing to limp with just about any two cards preflop. Those of you who know how I play will note how totally different that is compared to the way I approach the game, as you will not see me limping preflop often at all, and there are really only a few hands in the deck that I would ever limp with before the flop in most cases.

Suffice it to say, I was salivating at the thought of running over this table, save for Mr. Experience I mentioned above who seemed like a guy who has played the game a bit before. He had the earphones, the chip tricks, and just generally gave off the vibe of an experienced player, where most of the other clowns at my table gave off the exact opposite impression. We started with stacks of 10,000 chips and blinds of 25-50. Blind rounds were 20 minutes -- about average for most random live tournaments I find around the area -- and the structure was aggressive with doubles of the blinds every round for an hour and then an ante kicking in as well starting in the second hour, so this was definitely not a tournament created for the tighties to wait around for the pocket Aces they so desperately love.

Given the mix at my starting table in this thing, I immediately went to work trying to create an aggressive image, and I lost a few chips c-betting against two players in pots where they could not have made it more obvious that they were strong after I c-bet, so I managed to get away with the minimum lost after that point in both of those hands. Otherwise I didn't see any good cards for the first hour or so, and as bad as that was to deal with, I had to sit and watch Mr. Experience quickly demonstrate that he did not know nearly as much about tournament poker as I had originally thought, and yet just get paid off again and again and again.

Within the first five minutes of the tournament kicking off, Mr. Experience doubled up against a guy at the other end of the table when Mr. Experience instacalled all in on the Ten-high flop while holding JT, besting the mighty T6 of his opponent who exited early as he turned out to be the ultimate any-top-pair guy at the table. The instacall with just top pair Jack kicker for what amounted to about 180 big blinds was my first clue that Mr. Experience was probably not quite the seasoned poker pro I had read him to be. My second clue was maybe ten minutes later when he insta-pushed allin for well over 150 big blinds with T7 on a QT3 rainbow board. Of course, this time he got called as well by a player holding Q9s (I mean, how could he ever fold that for 100 effective big blinds?), and then, of course, Mr. Experience spiked a 7 on the river to eliminate his second player and swell his stack to over 30k in chips through just one level of blinds in this tournament.

Fast forward another 15 minutes to the end of Round 2, and Mr. Experience again found himself pushing allin -- this time for about 200 big blinds -- with 96 on a Q97 flop, got instacalled and found himself to be up against Q7 for flopped two pairs, and then proceeded to cut out the 10k in chips from his stack to pay off his opponent as he watched the turn and river come 6-6 to give him the miracle runner-runner boat, and to lift him to over 40k in chips when second place in the tournament at the time was sitting at around 15k -- and that 2nd place guy was me. I had been down to around 8000 chips before open-raising preflop with QJs, seeing an all-suited flop (wrong suit) of J93, and then leading out with a standard c-betty looking bet and getting called by one opponent who had been actively calling a lot of streets in a lot of pots without raising much at all, so I figured my top pair was likely to still be ahead here. On the raggy turn card which still left me with top pair, my opponent checked the action to me again but it was clear to me from his mannerisms that this was not some guy sitting on a flopped set and trying to string me along. He clearly did not want me to bet, so I did bet out again, confident that my top pair Queen kicker was ahead, and he called again after a few moments of hesitation. At this point, blinds had just increased to 100-200, and as I mentioned I was down to around 8k before the hand even started, so I had at this point more than a third of my stack in the pot, and when the river brought an ugly-ass Ace, I was about ready to spit. I just knew this guy had been calling me down with AQ or AT or something and had spiked his card on the river to beat my one-pair. But then a strange thing happened -- my opponent, who had check-called all the way through the hand to this point, waited literally no time at all before picking up his entire stack of chips and slamming it down really hard in the middle and announcing all-in in a faux-confident manner. The whole act was so ridiculous and so over the top to me that I instantly defined it as an act. I figured he did not have an Ace after all, and since I never thought he had a Jack either, all I could put him on was a bluff or some kind of middle pair or other. I hated calling off my last 20 big blinds or so with just second pair Queen kicker with an Ace on the board, but my gut kept telling me I was ahead all along and that I didn't trust his lead bet now either, so in the end after a good 20, 30 seconds to consider, I figured what's $100 if I'm wrong, but I thought I was ahead so I called. My opponent immediately slammed his cards down in disgust when I showed my Jack, flipped up a 9 for third pair. This brought me up to around 15k in chips, where again I was in second place in the entire tournament, behind only Mr. Experience two seats to my right who continually got in behind and made indefensibly silly bets in this and yet was sitting on around 42k in chips not even 45 minutes in to the tournament.

While I tried to get more aggressive with the 50% gain I had managed to the starting stacks in the first two blind rounds, Mr. Experience only got more and more brazen as his stack continued to swell. He raised three or four times in succession after a bunch of people had limped in behind him, at least one time showing down a face card and garbage eventually when he folded to a big raise on the turn, and at one point he reraised a preflop raiser for his entire stack with what turned out to be 97s, got called by pocket Jacks, and then proceeded to flop a flush draw and turn his flush to suckout-eliminate yet another player and jump to around 55k in chips, with me still in second place in the tournament with just under 15k. It was unreal what this guy was doing, the whole table was openly cracking up about it, and I could not wait to pick up a hand and take some serious chippage from this guy who clearly had no clue whatsoever how or when to slow down in a poker tournament.

Late in Round 3 as the first hour neared a close, I got my chance as Mr. Experience was utg and open-raised as he did every single time he was under the gun on the entire night to that point, and I peeled up the corners of my hole cards to find pocket Kings. Being that I was in middle position and that Mr. Experience was likely quite weak given his history to date, and given how positive I was that he would bet big (maybe even 300 big blinds!) on the flop regardless of whether it hit him or not, I opted to just call his preflop raise from middle position, hoping someone would try a squeeze where I could then re-reraise allin, but unfortunately nobody else wanted to mess with the two big stacks in the tournament to that time, especially when one of them had a golden horse up his ass. The flop came down Ten-high, and no sooner had I begun to consider how to get as close to a double-up as possible, when Mr. Experience immediately announced "I'm all in" once again. It was ridiculous, really. Here I am, trying to play this game correctly, and no wanting to end up with 80 big blinds in on the flop with just one pair, but the board was just so raggy and matched up so poorly with an utg preflop raiser's hand, and the guy had shown down so much utter stinking garbage so far on the night, that I felt compelled not to fold, and I simply announced "I have to call you with this hand."
I flipped up my pocket Kings for the overpair, and Mr. Experience showed pocket 9s -- easily the best hand he had shown on the day and thus I suppose better than what I expected, but he was no competition for me as my Kings were roughly a 91% favorite to take the hand over his underpair.

Then the 9 on the river continued this clown's ridiculous spate of luck, and ended my night early. All I know is, when I left this thing, there were I think 24 players remaining, with the five eliminations all having come at the hands of Mr. Experience, and he had around 72k in chips while second place was sitting on around 13k. Think about that for a moment -- and I don't think I honestly saw him make a single play on the day that was not a complete embarrassment to him and an abject affront to the game of poker across the board -- but he literally held more than five times the stack of the guy in second place -- not the average stack, but the second place stack -- not even an hour in to a tournament that was probably designed to last about 3-4 hours overall.

Now I can't say I stuck around to see how this tournament ended up, and the one guy I knew there who had mentioned it to me in the first place busted shortly after and he too does not know how it ended, but how much you wanna bet this guy found a way not to win the roughly $750 first prize in the end? All I know is, for me that is two consecutive live tournaments where my night ended an hour or so in on a river two-outer after being way ahead and even having the patience to wait until the flop was out before committing myself or my opponent. Could pokerstars be moving in to the live poker business?

What Exactly Is This Guy Calling With?

So I'm playing one of these turbo $55 sng's. on full tilt. We're probably about 20 or 25 hands in, and the action folds around to me in the small blind. I open raise with ATo, I think an absolutely automatic play in any turbo sng structure. The big blind smooth calls. I then check the flop when I make TPTK, inducing the bluff I knew was coming as you basically have to do in these 1-table turbos when you call a preflop "steal-raise" like that. My opponent obliges and bets 320 into the 480-chip pot, and I follow through with my planned check-raise, opting to just push it allin rather than try to get cute with the bet amounts:



My opponent surpsies me by calling:



Now I repeat the title of this post: What exactly is this guy calling with? Did he really think his King-high was good? Maybe it was the strength of his kicker? What is he hoping to see hit the board after calling me in this spot?








Oh ok. That's what. My bad.

Cheesus Christopher people.

River Unkind in FTOPS #1 Cash

Wow. A whole lot to get to today and absolutely no time to get to it thanks to ongoing work tiltage. Man I cannot wait for my extra long weekend beach trip that commences Friday morning when we jump in the car and head for the house on the beach. I will be away through Monday evening, so even though I always like to post while I am away, my track record at such times has not been great. Rest assured even if you do not hear from me again until next week, I will be back and better than ever on Tuesday, refreshed to begin another streak of daily musings posted for your viewing pleasure.

My first big announcement today relates to something I have posted about recently, and that is the biggest-ever poker tournament scores for other bloggers. As I've said previously, that kinda shit is what I am all about when it comes to our community here, and I am pleased to have more news on that front to bring you today. Ask yourself this question: what's the biggest single tournament score that any of the female bloggers in our group have ever come up with? I spent a lot of time on this point and I think this one takes the cake. Last night, a favorite new blogger of mine took 3rd place in the 32k guaranteed afternoon nlh tournament on full tilt, raking in a cool $4700+ for her efforts, easily her largest ever poker win. Who is this blogger you may ask? Well, her name is LJ and she's been blogging for quite some time actually. In addition to this huge win on Wednesday evening, LJ also cashed in the Ladies' event at the World Series of Poker this past summer in her first ever WSOP appearance. LJ is a lawyer like me, and like me she was forced to stay home from work on Wednesday due to NYC-wide transit failures caused by severe storms early in the morning hours. Which of course, like me, meant a day full of online pokery goodness. Before she knew it $8 turned into a winning satellite into the $163 buyin 32k tournament at 3pm ET, and then 5 1/2 hours later, it became $4700 and change for a 3rd place finish out of 280-some runners. Go stop by LJ's blog and congratulate her on a job very, very well done. LJ definitely has the aggression gene working in her game, and it can be really fun to watch someone like that when they are "on" at the tables, where I'm sure this is just the first of many scores for us to see in the future. Wtg LJ!

Secondly, allow me to congratulate MiamiDon on taking down I think his 36th Mookie title of 2007. That guy is unreal. I've won I think 6 MATH and Riverchasers titles this year, but I don't think I've even cashed more than one time this entire year in maybe 16 or 17 Mookie tournaments, and Don wins this thing every month. Sick. Wtg Don.

Next I want to turn my attention to the FTOPS. The Full Tilt Online Poker Series V began on Wednesday night with a $216 buyin nlh tournament with a 500k guarantee. In the end this was far and away the biggest field I've ever seen to start an FTOPS, and quite possibly the biggest field ever for an FTOPS tournament as far as I know, with 4,165 runners vying for payouts which would began with 585th place. There were at least six bloggers in attendance in this thing -- myself, LJ, KOD, goat, cmitch and Alan -- and I believe KOD was the first of us to go out, somewhere in the first hour I'm sure to one of the callmonkeys who can't lay down top pair shit kicker to significant action early in a large mtt. Things started off slow as ballz for me, as I got no cards to speak of for basically the first two hours of the tournament, and basically lasted patiently well into the second hour before starting to steal some pots to lift my stack above the starting level of 3000 chips.

Around two hours in to the tournament, I finally picked up my first premium hand of pocket Aces, and went on to play a huge pot when I elected to just smooth call here:



and then was faced with this sweet decision after the flop:



I had already decided I was likely ahead of any raise-calling holdings these people were likely to have preflop, so I moved allin and got called, bringing me to this situation:



which I count as me needing to dodge 12 outs twice (2 Kings, 3 Queens and 7 other diamonds other than the Qd and the Ad in my own hand). So I am a slight, slight favorite for the triple-up here. Of course, the 5d fell immediately on the turn, the first of many key suckouts against me on this night, but then a glorious fourth diamond hit on the river, making me the nut four-flush for the resuck, the only time I was able to come back from a suckout against me on the night and winning me a huge pot in the process:



Here I entered the top 10% of the field of approximately 1200 players left after two hours of play, with 2900-some donkeys already eliminated in just the first two rounds.

Unfortunately for me, the suckouts like what almost happened to me on that hand were far too commonplace on Wednesday for me to ever amass a huge stack. I vaulted up here on a hand I got all the money in with ahead and where neither player should ever have been calling allin in that spot anyways, and that was really very indicative of my play on the night. I was so on, about as on as I ever get at the poker tables, and almost every read and every move worked out just as I had hoped. I think over about four hours of play, I got caught -- reraised when I had been steal-raising with a hand I could not call a reraise with -- maybe two times total. Otherwise, I probably made moves with air at 40 or 50 pots, and I won every single time. I was clicking on all cylinders, folding my garbage to reraises and getting paid off well with my big hands. And yet, no matter what I did, no matter how good my reads and no matter how far ahead I was when the money got in, something kept happening all through the tournament, again and again and again to me, that would prevent me from climbing into the really big stacks left in the event. It was honestly one of the more frustrating nights of poker I have had in some time. I'll show you what I mean.

Here is a guy in the third hour doing the allin raggy flop bet, which I seem to pick off all the time as a bluff in the big online mtts:



I called his ass, and I had him drawing to 10 outs twice, which he could not possibly have known were all outs when he put his money in on the flop there:



In any event I was about a 60-40 favorite with two cards to come, and if my favorite and my solid read holds on here I am into the top 12 of the remaining players in the tournament.

Instead, inside straight fills on the river, so blechy:



This one knocks me back down from 24k to just over 16k. A third of my stack gone, and I had to regroup and rebuild my stack before it was able to get really big.

About 40 minutes later or so, I had built my stack back up to over 33k, around the highest I had been thus far in the event, when I once again ran into a brick wall with a huge hand thanks to an unkind river. I played the soooted JackAce from the small blind into a multiway pot, and called a too-small halfpot bet on the QQ3 flop with the nut flush draw. When my flush filled on the turn, I checked the action, intending on check-raising, and my opponent checked behind which sucked for me. But I like the move -- with a pot the size of my opponent's stack already, and with a seemingly non-scary QQ3 board, the odds of the guy betting out there are significantly high in my experience to warrant the check here. I already had the nut flush so I'm not the least bit worried about another diamond hitting the board on the river (that would be great actually, if he has the soooted King or something similar in diamonds), so I think the check is actually the most +EV move in that spot which is why I did it, but in that case he checked behind, and the river brought a low fourth diamond, which I absolutely loved since I held the Ace but the odds were now higher than my opponent had a high flush as well.

This time I was not about to check again with the nut flush on a 4-flush board, so I bet out half the pot, which my opponent thought about for a few seconds and then raised me allin:



and then check out what happened on the river here:



Fucking gross. Thank you, river. And go ahead, blame my turn check. I love that Monday morning garbage. The turn check was the better move here; what this is is good old-fashioned riverfuckage, the second time now in this tournament when I had a big stack borderlining to grow huge, but instead here once again I am knocked back down from 33k to 21k. And now I was pissed. A couple of hands later saw us move into the money payout positions as player #586 was eliminated, so I had cashed once again in my first FTOPS tournament since my huge run and about $4000 in total cashes in FTOPS IV last May.

After this second big crushing, I somehow managed to regain some semblance of composure during the third break and stole a bunch more pots early in the fourth hour whenever I sensed weakness, not getting caught at all. At some point goat girly chatted to tell me he had busted, somewhere in the 300s but a nice solid cash nonetheless given the huge size of the field in this event. Eventually, with my stack still sitting around 22k, I found my second premium hand, another pocket Aces, and more than that, some donkass mfidiot pushed allin ahead of me with this gem of a hand to push from EP with:



Brilliant. So here I go, I'm about 85% or whatever to jump to nearly 60k, once again into the top 10 of the now 350 or so remaining players. Check out that river unkind, popping up again:



Boooooooom! Ever wondered how to keep me out of the end game of a large mtt when I amass a big stack early and am at my most dangerous? Suck out three huge rivers against me for a total of about 75k in chips lost, at a time when my stack size never got above 33k as a result. That shiat'll work every single time. If any one of those three favorites holds up for me in this event, I am into the top 10 or 15 total players, and I am set up awesomely for a seriously deep run. Instead, I just could not get out of my own way -- I kept getting in ahead, I kept laying great reads and trusting in them and putting my money where my mouth was. I kept getting in dominatingly ahead, but just kept getting scrooged at the river. All I did in FTOPS #1 was get my chips in ahead, and again and again and again I had nothing much to show for it. Very effing frustrating, let me tell you.

So frustrating, in fact, that just a few hands later when the action folded to me in the small blind and I once again found my stack at around 20k in chips -- after I felt like I had doubled up about four times from that spot already not counting the horrifying rivers I was pelted with all night -- I pushed allin with ATC. I got insta-called by the big blind with the JackAce, and well we all know how my hands tend to hold up against the JackAce. So, IGH in 300th place out of 4165 entrants for a total payout of $416.50. It wasn't much in actual cash, and certainly not compared to what I won 3 or 4 times in the last FTOPS, but on the good side, dam did I play awesome, awesome poker in this thing. It's a shame that work and family obligations will keep me from playing most of the FTOPS this time around, but I'm looking forward to my next chance which will be this Friday night in FTOPS Event #3, the pot-limit holdem tournament with also a $216 buyin. And congratulations to cmitch, outlasting all the bloggers to start FTOPS V with a 112th place finish in FTOPS #1, good for $761 and change to one of the best poker playing bloggers out there.

It was a strong showing overall for the blogging community to begin the biggest regular tournament series available on the best online poker site available in the United States (or anywhere, as far as I'm concerned). Personally, I made good money on the night so in that sense that always has to be counted as a very good thing, but yet I left the thing last night feeling much more frustrated and negative than positive to tell the truth. Even this morning I woke up with these same feelings of frustration still nagging at me, because I know in my heart that if I had won any one of those three favorite hands, I was going to make another really big score here. I know I've said this about a million times here on the blog, but for me there is almost nothing worse than totally outplaying a guy, duping him into betting his entire stack at you, or correctly reading him and calling when you're ahead on the flop or turn, and then still having the shit effed away from you on the river even despite your superior play. That was me last night. I did bluff I think twice into strong hands, both of which as I mentioned above I quickly abandoned for a small (insignificant) loss, but otherwise it was not a single mistake, not a single misread, and not a single time when the money got in and I was behind, until my elimination hand. And despite the three or four suckouts against me, I did not get the benefit of a single suckout in my favor at all in the event, other than a small hand where I had pot odds to call two shorties allin ahead of me before the flop with some crappy sooooted donk hand, J5s or something like that. But the luck factor was just staunchly against me throughout FTOPS #1, and cashing in 300th place, making more than double the buyin and, frankly, about 4x the money that I personally spent qualifying for this tournament is a good thing. Any time I outlast 3800-some of my closest online donkey friends, I suppose that is something to be proud of. But man, what could have been....

Don't forget the latest Riverchasers tournament tonight on full tilt, sponsored as always by Al. It is at 9pm ET on full tilt as always, with the password of "riverchasers". I will try to make it there tonight, though my plans for the evening are, like on Wednesday, somewhat up in the air at this point due to ongoing work obligations as I prepare for a few days away, unplugged and completely off the map from a work involvement perspective. But while you're bashing some donkeys in the Riverchasers tonight, be sure to check in on fellow bloggers KOD, jeciimd and any others who are playing in FTOPS Event #2 in HORSE with a $216 buyin tonight also on full tilt. These guys can both play all the HORSE games, so either is always a threat to make some noise in one of these things. I will be checking on their progress as soon as I am able to log on tonight, and you should support the group as well by doing the same. Otherwise, I will be on on Friday night from the beach for FTOPS Event #3 in pot-limit holdem, so you can look for me over the weekend even though I will technically be away and I don't usually play poker while on vacation. For the FTOPS, of course, we can make some exceptions.

Have a good and profitable weekend everyone.

Fun Poker Weekend

It's Monday agaiiiiiiiiiin!



That's right, guys. Only two more Mondays at the Hoy tournaments left in the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, and although we will of course be continuing on the tradition that is the Monday night MATH tournament for a tier I token buyin and with double stacks on full tilt for the foreseeable future even after the BBT schedule is completed at the end of this month (more accurately, on Sunday, July 1 with Don's Big Game as the big finale to the fabulous tournament challenge schedule), there are still those prizes for the top few finishers on the BBT leaderboard, as well as your seats in the lucrative BBT freeroll coming later in July up for grabs. So, those of you who have not yet qualified by playing in the required 20 BBT tournaments will really want to kick things in gear over the next two weeks, starting with tonight's MATH tournament, in order to play your way in to the freeroll, as well as those of you who don't think you will reach the 20 events played plateau but think you might be able to squeak your way in to the top 50 spots on the leaderboard. Remember, that's what it takes to get in to that BBT freeroll -- either top 50 on the BBT leaderboard or at least 20 BBT events played -- and as of right now we're already looking at a freeroll prize pool of around $1500, with more to be added over the last few weeks of the challenge. Now if that kind of free cashish ain't worth playing for then I don't know what is, so get off your arses and come out and play, starting tonight with Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!

In other better-late-than-never news, be sure to go by and congratulate Jordan who last Thursday scored his biggest-ever poker win by taking down the $8500 guaranteed tournament on full tilt. The $3000+ that Jordon won was far and away his largest ever poker score, eclipsing his previous single-event best by a factor of five times, so go stop by and congratulate the man on joining the big time and read his writeup post that we all better hope his work does not read or we may be hearing less and less about his sick-day poker exploits in the future.

As for me, this weekend was the worst weekend of bad beats that I have experienced in as long as I can remember. As in, I'm sure I've experienced worse, but it's been long enough since it was this bad that I don't remember the details anymore. In the end I am pleased as punch to say that, for the second time this spring already, I lost a third of my online bankroll in one weekend, although unlike the last time this happened, this weekend was not at all the result of tilt. This time it all basically happened in the span of, if you can believe this, five fucking minutes. Playing two tables of 2-4 6-max nlh at once, I found pocket 3s and called a preflop raise from a guy across the table. The flop came AQ3. I bet out with my set because I'm a man, and the guy raised, which I friggin knew he would since his preflop raise had indicated an Ace. I reraised him the size of the pot -- not even allin but just a pot-sized reraise, again because I'm a man, and of course he insta-pushed. And of course I insta-called. And of course he showed me Queens. Sweet.

Barely 100 seconds later on my other 2-4 table, this time I was the one who raised preflop when I found a pair of 8s in middle position. Just the big blind called, and the flop came down A84. I bet out with my set because I'm a man, and the guy raised, which I friggin knew he would since his instacall of my preflop raise told me he had a strong Ace. I reraised him the size of the pot -- not even allin but just a pot-sized reraise, against because I'm a man, and of course he insta-pushed. And of course I insta-called. And of course he showed me Aces. Delicious.

I'd love to tell you that this is where the story ends, that I accepted that it was just not my night and I packed it in for the day. But I didn't. I couldn't. For whatever reason, I wasn't even tilted in the least after two set-over-set stackings in less than two minutes. In fact, I had been playing well and killing the competition at both of my tables before these two setbacks, and I have played enough cash these days to recognize this as just a major cooler run, but I was completely level-headed and I figured I'll just go and make this money back. I had been on another big run at the cash, lifting my PT stats up to fresh all-time highs after the past few days of action, and I had no problem accepting what had just happened as the ass end of variance that everyone will experience if they play enough. I had already immediately closed out the second table where the second set-stacking had occurred, but I went ahead and reloaded back to $400 at the first table where the players were truly terrible and I started rebuilding. I won a small pot before the flop and another larger pot after float-calling a preflop stealer's c-bet on the flop and then leading out big on the turn. Then I look down to find Jacks, I raise it up and get one caller, and the flop comes down JT4 rainbow. Top set, no way that shit is happening to me again at least. I bet out with my set because I'm a man, and I get raised which actually surprises me but in a good way. I reraise him the size of the pot -- not even allin but just a pot-sized reraise, against because I'm a man, and he just smooth calls. I'm lovin' it. The turn is an offsuit King. Knowing for sure he cannot possibly be playing AQ in this way, I lead out for the size of the pot into the now large pot, and he insta-pushes for his last $140 or so into a $600 pot. Of course I insta-call (please tell me none of you are fonks enough to fold here). And of course he shows me pocket Kings.

Just fucking delectable. I'm leaving out a fourth time I ran into a set, this time with TPTK, which also happened within 30 minutes of the three losses above, for another nice loss, albeit a limited one for me at least. And I'm not even going to mention the 96.77% favorite hand (thank you CardPlayer holdem odds calcualtor) that I lost after the flop lateish in the 26k on Friday night, which Goat got to experience in all its jaw-dropping splendor while watching it live with me, when I got my fonkponent to call my allin raise on the AK9 flop with his A8 (!!!) against my 99, only to lose to runnerrunner clubs for a four-flush. Let's just say that overall this was about as gross of a weekend as one can have at the tables. I mean, running into set-over-set is inevitable if you play a lot of cash, and with experience you come to accept that this is an unavoidable part of playing the game, in both directions. So for every time my set of 3s loses to a set of Queens on the AQ3 flop, you expect that I'll get to be the set of Queens in that scenario an equal number of times. Theoretically, anyways. But running into two flopset over flopset scenarios in 2 minutes, both of which with you as the loser, that is something special, something which I'm still waiting to get to experience on the good end of things in my cash game play. And when it happens a third time in the span of 5 or 6 minutes, well that is a favor which I honestly do not expect to be returned to me by the poker assgods no matter how long I play this game. It just sucks to have to go and rebuild my online roll for all those losses again, after I was playing so well this weekend and had actually gotten lucky (I thought) to have flopped not just one and not just two but three of those one-time-in-eight sets with my pocket pairs.

Anybody know the odds of running into set-over-set on the flop in no-limit holdem? I'd love to know the odds of that happening twice and then running into a turned set over a lower flopped set as well, as a series of three connected events (not even counting the odds of these all happening within 5 minutes, which I can only assume are beyond astronomical. Galactic maybe.).

See you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt! And in keeping with my thematic bounties of late, if you bust me with set over set from the MATH tonight, I'll buy you in to this week's Mookie and next week's MATH tournament with a $37 bounty to boot. What a deal that is going to be for someone.

MATH Recap, and Back to Poker Tracker

Another fun time was had by most at Monday night's Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt, with 47 bloggers and non-bloggers alike coming out for their shot at a spot on the 2007 MATH moneyboard, some additional BBT points, and maybe a chance as well to take down the $26 bounty I laid on myself for anyone who sucks out on me with a dominatable bullshit hand that people love to eliminate me from poker tournaments with, especially these blonkaments. And as far as taking me out of this thing, although I did not pay the bounty, the redickulous bad beat sprite once again did not have to worry about going home disappointed about my exit.

How exactly did I go out, you ask? Well, I am dealt QQ (how many of my phucking elimination stories seem to begin that same way?) in middle position, where I open-raise the standard 3x to 180 chips. GCox calls my preflop raise from two seats to my left. The flop comes AQ4. Bingo! With 450 chips in the pot, I'm not a donkey so I'm going to lead out with a bet, into the player who likely has a strong Ace, and who will surely indicate to me from his actions on that bet whether he really likes his hand or not. This is Gary Cox after all, so I don't really have to worry much about him putting a move on me and reraising me with nothing in this spot. So I bet 360 into the 450-chip pot, and Gary minraises:



Now, if you know Gary, this can basically only mean one thing: AK. Literally of all the people I know, even Blinders isn't going to minraise here without a very strong hand, and I don't even think Gary would minraise with a flopped set, which I would think he would be a bit too weary of telegraphing his hand with a minraise. To me, the minraise just screamed out "AK! AK!" and that's what I figured I was up against at this point. So, figuring Gary is trying to figure out where he's at, I didn't want to move in here because I thought Gary might fold just the one pair on the flop (I could have AQ even and have him reverse dominated at this point). Instead I figured I'll just use his own move against him, and I min-reraised him right back:



When Gary smooth called instead of re-re-reraising me, that iced it. He had AK, and he still figured he was best here. When the turn came an offsuit Jack, I moved in the rest of my chips, only equalling half the pot at this point, knowing therefore Gary was likely to call given his large stack:



Gary insta-called:



Booooooom! Then, just as quickly, buuuuuuuust:



Just sick. And the worst part is, I didn't even get to pay out my donkey bounty for the night, as Gary knocked me out with AK and not some donkey-dominated hand like somebody else surely would have taken a run at me with sooner or later in this thing. And for those of you expecting a profanity-laden rant for Gary's play, sorry to disappoint you. He got abused, don't get me wrong, but he played his TPTK like many people would have played it, and I'm not going to kill him just because he fell victim to the kind of trickery that I busted out with early on in the MATH on Monday night. My play would have worked on just about anyone in that spot in this tournament. Once again my ire is directed at the frucking full tilt server that just continually seems to have it in for me in these blonkaments. I know that may sound lame coming from the guy who just won the Riverchasers tournament last Thursday, but the bottom line fact is that last Thursday was the exception and not the rule. I have about two or three too many now of these reconchulous river cards spiking to take my 85 or 90%+ favorite down and knock me out of a good spot in these events. The play is dubious enough in these tournaments already, but for me to be continually losing to 2- and 3- and 4-outers, in particular when I'm purposefully showing the restraint to wait until after the flop is already out before getting it all in, that is just too much to face. Dam you blonkament gods, why have you forsaken me?

Speaking of the blonkaments, I have noticed a very interesting phenomenon over the past few BBT tournaments: the players generally speaking are clearly playing tighter these days. I think over half of the BBT has gone by and has given people a chance to develop their own strategies for success, and frankly the points structure we're using to score the BBT tournaments has incentivized many players to play tighter than they normally would. Thus, lately it has definitely become harder for the fold-till-the-points-guys to just keep sticking around and survive. The full weight of the bbt is beginning to be borne.

I've also been thinking lately, maybe a year or two ago some of us gave DuggleBogey a little bit too much shite when he voiced his concerns over the WPBT tournament scoring system being formulated. Back then, Duggles made the point that scoring these tournaments on a week-to-week basis kinda ruins what many of us are generally trying to do in these blonkaments, which is to have fun, not "make the points". In particular when using a scoring system that does not even award points only to the final table or only to the cashers, but rather to every finisher in just the top half of the total number of entrants, there is a clear incentive to not be aggressive, not push some draws or some hands you might be able to win with, to not make that call preflop with the pocket 7s, to not push that suited AK on the flop with 2 to your suit and 3 raggy undercards, etc. It clearly has changed the play in these events, and while I definitely enjoy a little competition from tournament to tournament among our group, there is something fun about thinking about the WWdN tonight (8:30pm ET on pokerstars, password as always is "monkey"), and being able to "just play" without having to think about making the points, and is my opponent just trying to make the points, etc. On some level I think Duggles might really have been on to something when he voiced this feeling early in 2006 I believe, and maybe some of us were a bit too quick to judge his comments harshly. I certainly don't think the point of the blogger tournaments should be to see who can play supertight until half the field is out and they then feel free to open up their games.

Anyways, back to the MATH, here are this week's cashers, out of 47 entrants with 24 runners winning BBT points and the top 6 cashing as has been usual for the MATH since the BBT rolled into town:

6. Our 6th place casher this week, winning $67.68 for his efforts and a very nice run, is lightning36, who is scoring his second MATH payout of 2007 after a strong performance to make the cash payouts for the week.

5. In 5th place this week, winning $90.24, is Blogger Big Game host MiamiDon, who pads his top-10 BBT tally with yet another BBT final table and cash.

4. RecessRampage also added to his top-10 BBT point standings this week with another 4th place finish in this week's MATH tournament, plus $124.08 cash awarded for yet aonother MATH cash.

3. 3rd place this week and $169.20 goes to Tripjax, folowing in his brother's footsteps and now making it at least three straight weeks that someone in the Trip family line makes a big cash in the MATH.

2. In second place this week is another big score for current BBT moneyleader Mike Maloney, winning another 248.16 to add to his already over $1000 won over 7 weeks of BBT events.

1. And this week's winner, making not only his first MATH win but his first cash in the MATH in all of 2007 in a tournament that he rarely plays, is Pokerstars blogger and all-around fabulous writer Otis, winning 428.64 for his efforts in winning his first ever MATH weekly title.

And now here are the updated 2007 MATH moneyboard standings as of this week's tournament:

1. Iggy $641
2. Astin $616
3. Columbo $606
4. Hoyazo $580
5. Bayne_s $579
6. Julius Goat $507
7. mtnrider81 $492
8. scots_chris $474
9. Fuel55 $458
10. Otis $429
11. Miami Don $402
12. Chad $379
13. Pirate Wes $372
14. IslandBum1 $357
15. ChapelncHill $353
16. Tripjax $345 (how cute the brothers are right next to each other!)
17. Zeem $330
18. Mike_Maloney $326
19. cmitch $312
19 oossuuu754 $312
21. VinNay $310
22. Waffles $294
23. Wigginx $288
24. ScottMc $282
25. Blinders $275
26. Manik79 $252
27. Wippy1313 $248
28. Byron $234
29. RecessRampage $224
30. Omega_man_99 $210
31. lightning36 $205
32. NewinNov $190
33. bartonfa $180
34. 23Skidoo $176
35. Santa Clauss $170
36. Iakaris $162
36. Smokkee $162
38. lester000 $147
39. DDionysus $137
40. Pushmonkey72 $129
40. InstantTragedy $129
42. Buddydank $124
43. Ganton516 $114
44. Gracie $94
44. Scurvydog $94
46. Shag0103 $84
47. PhinCity $80
47. jeciimd $80
49. Alceste $71
49. dbirider $71
51. Easycure $67

So, another strong week for the MATH moneyboard, as this week's winner Otis makes his first appearance on the board, while all five of our other cashers are repeat offenders in cashing in the Hoy during 2007. Congratulations again to all of our cashers and especially to Otis for taking the whole thing down for the first time.

OK before I go today I thought we could take another look at my Poker Tracker stats as I continue to build a database through several hours of playing and observing at the 1-2 and 2-4 6-max nlh tables on full tilt. To be honest I still have a very, very small number of hands to evaluate from (under 900), but it's about 9 times more than I had when I first posted these figures last week, and I'm still trying to figure out how to interpret all these statistics and really in some cases what these numbers even mean in practical terms. Plus, PT is good in that it allows me to compare my results and my statistics to the other profitable players I've seen online, and look at how I fare against those players in a number of key statistical areas.

For starters, here are my General poker stars via Poker Tracker:



Interesting items to focus on from this view include that I am up about 3.5 buyins at 2-4 over 887 hands. It may not sound so impressive to some of you (and to some of you that track record probably would not be that impressive), but #1 I'm not losing, as I used to consistently at the cash tables, and #2 these figures do not even include my first 4 or 5 buyins won when I first started with $400 nl 6-max cash about three weeks ago. I figure I am probably up more like 10 buyins over 1500 hands or so, which is much prettier than 3.5 buyins over 900 hands. So playing 400nl has been very profitable for me this month, and I feel like I am getting increasingly adept at knowing when I am likely ahead or behind, and acting appropriately based on that information. Also, I point out that you can see on that screenshot that I have won exactly 1 out of 8 times I've been dealt AK, either soooted or unsoooted. That is redonkulous and will not persist over time, especially since I am just about the last person online who you will ever see push unimproved AK into a raggy flop against anyone who's shown any semblance of strength so far in a hand. Otherwise, looking at the above numbers, the stats themselves do not seem to have changed too much since I first showed them at right around 100 hands played. Pre-flop raise is still at just under 20%, which is fine I think, and my VP$IP is up to 29, still a bit higher than where I think I want this to be over the long run. That said, I tend to use stealing blinds as an integral part of my strategy at 6-max, and that may explain why this number feels a bit on the high side for what I was expecting to see. The one number I still think really needs to get higher is my Won $ at Showdown percentage, which still sits right at 50%. 50% isn't terrible, but for a winning player who expects to keep winning more and more at this game, I think WSD needs to be closer to 60% or higher to really maximize the efficiency of my profits.

Here are my PT stats sorted by position:



What I love about the top of this screen is that you can see that I am basically playing profitable poker from every position at the table. Yes in the BB I am down $148.25, but if you add back in the price of the big blind I am up a good 5 hundy from there, and the only position where I'm not showing a healthy profit is 2 from the button, which I imagine is just random and over time will even itself out. I also note that at 2 spots away from the button, that is my only slightly negative position at the table, and it is also -- perhaps not coincidentally -- the only spot other than acting last on the button where my preflop cold-call % is over 1. Those of you who know my game know that I am definitely not much of a cold caller -- cold calling preflop is most definitely a recipe for poker losses and not poker profits -- but here you can see even in those few instances where I cold call preflop, it appears to be costing me over time in terms of overall profitability. Another interesting stat that goes along this one is that you can see I am going to the showdown more frequently from 2 spots away from the button -- my only money-losing position -- and I am winning at showdown less frequently with the higher percentage of the time that I see the river and show down the cards. So I can see already that I have some work to do there, as far as ensuring that from all positions at the table I am not staying in too long, in particular to see a showdown, without a hand of sufficient quality to warrant staying in.

Here at my stats sorted per winning hand:



As you can see and as is probably not surprising, with "high card" hands I am strongly negative, as these hands of course tend not to win nlh pots. That said, you can see that I am solidly in the green for every other type of winning hand better than high card. And I once again call your attention to the one-pair category, where I am now up more than a buyin for what is easily my second most profitable hand other than straights, which for some reason have been gold for me thus far, winning me 6 out of 6 showdowns with my straight hands. But my point is, I continue to show evidence that playing with just one pair at 6-max nlh can be a winning strategy, if played correctly, cautiously and if your reads are right-on. Of course it helps that I am not one to call big bets with top pair most of the time, but rather I focus more on overpairs, pocket Aces, etc. for situations to consider calling significant bets with just one pair hands.

Lastly, and this is one of my favorite screens on Poker Tracker, here are my general stats as compared to the list of the other most profitable players I have run into and recorded stats for over the past week I have been running PT during my nightly play:



I like this view because it can really show my generalized statistics against other good (or bad) players, stat-by-stat in the columns. So, out of 1177 total players I have recorded, my profitability has been 7th best among all of those players during the times I have been recording plays online. That is quality right there. I also note in the totals at the bottom that there are a total of 58% losers and only 41% winners during all the time I have recorded. That means there's a whole lot of fish out there to be draining money from, something which I have definitely found myself over recent experience. Anyways, this screen can help put some of my overall stats into good perspective -- for example, my BB/100 rate of 19.95 is actually fairly low, among the good players. That is interesting to me given my success, and the only thing I can think is that maybe I am playing a bit tighter than some of those other players are, or maybe I'm failing to maximize the profit I'm making from my best hands, I don't know. I tend to avoid sitting at tables with more than one large, winning stack, so that may also factor in to lowering somewhat my overall win rate. My VP$IP and my PFR also seems to be just slightly on the high side, as compared to the other profitable players who have recorded more than 3 or 4 sessions to give a good indicator of their general play with both good and bad starting cards, which is something which I have already identified as a potential area for improvement as far as tightening up just a little bit preflop where appropriate. And of course, of the top 19 most profitable players I have recorded at 400nl 6-max, my 50% win rate at showdown is in 15th place of those 19 most profitable players. Again, clearly something I need to improve at if I expect to keep winning, and to keep increasing my win rate, over the long run at this game.

OK so hopefully all those cash play stats are useful or at least interesting to you all out there. I would love any thoughts that any of you Poker Tracker guys have on my play generally or on the very quick analysis I give above on some of the things that jump out at me from these four pages of PT statistics. I look forward tonight to jumping back on to the cash tables for some more action winning with one pair and raising it up preflop a bit too often, in addition to possibly playing the Wheatie at 8:30pm ET on pokerstars, and maybe looking into that WSOP Main Event Tuesday night qualifier as well on full tilt.

The Ten Plagues of Holdem Poker

Having the day off from work for Good Friday, I've spent the day so far with my family and not quite finishing up yet with screenshotting my post from yesterday detailing my run to second place and the 5 grand in the nightly 30k guaranteed tournament on full tilt. That I will get to this weekend, and I will either link up the updated post, or I may just repost it with all the screenshots and updated explanations when it's done. In any event, today I'm going to post something that I started writing earlier in the week, inspired by the Jewish holiday this week but actually a list that I've been thinking of putting together for some time.

With a 3-year-old daughter who is just starting to figure stuff out and remember things from year to year, this is the first year that we've actually been able to get some mileage out of telling our girls the story of Passover when this time of year comes around. For the first time, my older daughter M was really intrigued by the story as we retold it during our annual seder this week, and there's a part of the story that I really fuckin love: the Ten Plagues. This is where Moses kept demanding that the Pharaoh in Egypt let the Jewish slaves go, but the Pharaoh kept saying no to the point that eventually God caused ten plagues to occur in succession in Egypt to help persuade the Pharaoh to free the slaves.

First there was blood, then frogs, then lice, wild animals, disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and finally the infamous slaying of the first born of every family in Egypt. After each of these plagues, as the story goes, the Pharaoh would immediately agree to allow the slaves to leave Egypt and be free, but then once he agreed and the plague would stop, the Pharaoh would go back on his word and not allow the slaves to leave after all. Hence there was a second plague, and then a third, and so on and so on until finally the tenth and final plague, which saw the Pharaoh's own eldest son slain in addition to all the eldest sons in all of Egypt. Incidentally, Jewish people eat matza during Passover because, as the story goes, after this tenth and most severe plague, Pharaoh was so distraught that he finally agreed "for real" to let the slaves leave, and this time the slaves rushed quickly, not even taking time to let their bread rise, before the Pharaoh once again changed his mind and tried to force the slaves to stay in Egypt.

Anyways, all this talk about the ten plagues has got me thinking this week. What would the Ten Plagues of Holdem look like? In other words, to make the proper analyogy to the story of Passover, if the poker gods were to try to use ten poker-related plagues to convince a poker player to agree to do something he did not otherwise want to do, what would those ten holdem plagues be? So I spent some time this week mulling this one over, and here's what I've come up with, in order from least severe (#10) to most severe (#1):

10. AJ calls my preflop allin against my pocket Tens on the first hand of an mtt and then spikes a Jack on the river to take it down.

9. I run KK into AA allin preflop. This one is equally bad in tournament or cash games.

8. Full tilt servers go down in late stage of large mtt. Later I receive an email with incorrect instructions as to the payout coming to me due to the outage.

7. Waffles wins a blogger tournament and we have to listen to his drivel about aggressive poker play and improving his game for nearly a week until he again donks off a big stack early.

6. My AA is cracked by KK allin preflop.

5. I suffer the infamous "counterfeit bad beat". This is where, for example, I am allin preflop in a tournament with TT against my opponent's A7, and the board comes KKQQ4.

4. My flopped set loses to a higher flopped set. Again, equally painful in tournament or cash game play.

3. I flop a flush and get it allin on the flop, only to be beaten by a higher flopped flush.

2. I flop a full house, get it allin somewhere in the hand, and end up being beaten by one-outer quads at the river.

And my number one worst holdem poker plague, which has happened to me twice this very week actually and never ceases to make me want to barf in my shoes...

1. I'm allin preflop with the same holding as my opponent (i.e., we both have a pair of Tens). I end up getting four-flushed in Joe Hachem runnerrunnerrunnerrunner fashion, like when my TcTd is against ThTs, allin preflop, and the board comes Qh9s7s6s2s. Yeech!

OK that's all for today. I hope everyone has a nice Good Friday and a Happy Easter, happy Passover and a good weekend overall. You can look for my updated 30k post at some point this weekend, or Monday at the latest. And I should be at the tables most of the nights this weekend, including taking some of my newly-won cash on full tilt and making a run at some more bracelet raceage, in addition to some 1-2 nlh cash. Any bloggers looking to try to relieve me of my funds at the cash tables, hit me up on the girly chat, I'll be there.