31 October 2006

What a Monday At The Hoy!

I probably won't see another good hand for at least a week. I was on fire last night at hoyazo's Monday tournament at PokerStars. I did my usual patient waiting bit, holding out for good cards before making a move. In "normal" tournaments I like to play more speculative hands early in the hope I can catch a big hand and stack one of those guys who are looking for any chance to push all-in. But the blogger tournaments are generally too aggro to play many cheap hands, so I prefer to wait for the cards.

Wrybagel had been pushing the table around for some time, taking advantage of his significant chip lead (at least over our table). He'd already suffered a major setback when he bluffed into hoyazo's queens, but just a few hands later he was doing it again. This time I pushed back. Surprisingly, he called and turned up Q7o. My A9o held, actually improving to a pair of nines, and I had a healthy stack.

The whole table seemed to run into connection problems and we had several players who were disconnected for quite a while. Oddly, I had no connection problems at all for a change, except for when my connection did its nightly timeout and I had to log in again. That is such a pain. Anyway, I was in position to take advantage of the disconnects, and I did, eventually taking the chip lead.

From there on I either got great cards or used my stack to bully the table, building to where, at one point, I had more than three times as many chips as the next closest player. It appeared a foregone conclusion that I'd walk away with this one.

Then the luck went cold. I got hit with a couple suckouts that brought my stack back down out of the stratosphere. Ultimately, however, I have only myself to blame for my slide from sure victory. I fell prey once again to assuming other players willing to push with the same kind of crap that I would. Twice I made that same mistake. I really need to make that one Harrington phrase my mantra -- bets usually mean what they seem to mean.

Congratulations to NewinNov on the win and to Wannstache for taking second. We played a long time with the three of us and they continued to play heads up for quite some time. Well played both of you.

Tonight is the WWdN, PokerStars, 20:30 EST, password monkey. Wednesday is the Mookie at Full Tilt, 22:00 EST, password vegas1. Thursday is WWdNot, PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password monkey. Note the time on the WWdNot has moved up 30 minutes from its previous starting time. This is a permanent time change (assuming there isn't a revolt).

30 October 2006

Weekend Poker

My poker weekend got off to a bad start. We initiated my new chips in a game after work on Friday. Only one of the guys plays with any regularity, and that only on the play money tables at Party. It was exactly the kind of game one would expect from inexperienced players, the kind you can take to the cleaners given enough time or the right cards. I had neither. Ended up the big loser, down $40 in less than two hours.

I realized I take my poker maybe just a bit too seriously when the near constant ring of cell phones and people leaving the table to take calls started to really irritate me. Getting nothing but folding cards probably didn't help.

I've started reading How Good Is Your Limit Hold'em? by Jacobs and Brier. If the book is any indication, I may have a better understanding of why I'm not winning at limit. I'm not sure I can fix it, but at least I have some idea of what's broken.

Overall it seems a worthwhile read, but I do have one critical comment concerning the format of the book. They talk in the opening of their more natural presentation of hands, going from start to finish on each hand rather than splitting the book up into separate discussions of pre-flop, flop, turn, and river, as do many other books.

I can buy into the basic premise, but then they change direction three or four times in each hand. They mix "hypothetical" scenarios for the hand in with the "actual" play, resulting in a confusing mess. After two or three hypothetical twists on the flop play, I find it very difficult to get back to the actual hand, and the physical presentation in the book doesn't make it easy.

For instance, they'll have something like this. You're dealt A♠ 9 in the cutoff.
Mr. Aggro UTG raises. Mr. Telephone in MP calls.
Question #1. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) raise.
Reverse the positions of Mr. Aggro and Mr. Telephone. Mr. Telephone UTG calls, Mr. Aggro in MP raises.
Question #2. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) raise.
Reverse the betting. Mr. Telephone UTG raises and Mr. Aggro in MP calls.
Question #3. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) raise.
The flop comes A 6♠ 4♠. Mr. Aggro bets and Mr. Telephone raises.
Question #4. You (a) fold, (b) call, (c) scratch your head trying to remember who's sitting where and who did what before the flop.

It gets worse as further scenarios are discussed on each street and the problem gets spread across three or four pages of the book. (This was an example of my own making which doesn't really do justice to the issue.) I think they would have produced a better book if they'd stuck with their original idea of presenting each hand as it is actually played. If they wanted to do variations, put them after the complete presentation of the original hand. I have enough trouble trying to figure out the answers without being confused about who's sitting where and who did what when.

I can't say that the first four problems in the book have had a significant impact on my limit poker. I played a few hours on Saturday and again on Sunday, still trying to clear as much of my Full Tilt bonus as possible. And I continued losing a lot faster than I'm earning bonus. I got so frustrated with the suckouts at limit that I switched to NL on Sunday. I can't play four tables of NL like I can limit, so the bonus clearing takes a big hit, but I usually walk away up at least a bit so I think I'm probably better off sticking with NL. I won about $40 in an hour of $0.25/$0.50 NL, much of it due to somebody running KK full speed into my AA.

I also played a few more of the $8+$0.70 turbo $26 Tournament Ticket SnG's. If you can get any cards at all these things are pretty easy. Unfortunately, I was card dead on the last two. I did win a ticket in the first one I played. I guess that leaves me down $0.10.

It's amazing to me how a "turbo" tournament can attract so many incredibly slow players. Every time I play I end up at tables with people who take close to the maximum time on every decision. I could almost see how this would play to your advantage if you'd doubled up early, but not when you haven't won a single pot. Given my recent connection problems from the hotel I should be the last one to complain about others being slow, but when I delay the game I'm not doing it on purpose or out of a lack of attention. It's very annoying to see people with no apparent connection problems continually delaying the game.

Tonight, once again, is Mondays At The Hoy, PokerStars, 22:00 EST, password hammer. Please join us.

27 October 2006

WWdNot


It seems Joanne's prediction concerning last night's WWdNot was right on the money. Despite Iggy quite effectively playing big stack poker during much of the final table, Joanne, helped just a bit by quad aces, was able to take the lead and become the final table bully. And she filled that role admirably.

I managed to fold my way into the money when Ursus Aureus moved all-in, followed by xkm1245 raising all-in, followed by Joanne calling. I was tempted to call as well, being down to an M of 8 and AQo being the best starters I'd seen in ages, but I very wisely decided my hand wasn't good enough to go up against two all-ins and a call. Ursus Aureus turned over Q9s, xkm1245 showed QQ, and Joanne revealed the incredibly powerful A9s. Joanne turned her flush, Ursus Aureus and xkm1245 went home, and I backed my way into the money.

One other hand clearly worth noting involved Ursus Aureus and wwonka. There was a bit of posturing before the flop and wwonka got it all in on a flop of Qh Ts Th. Wwonka shows QQ, giving him queens full of tens, and Ursus Aureus shows Ah Kh, giving him, well, nothing. The turn brought a worthless flush for the golden bear, but, the river... ah, the river. The river brought the money card. The one card in the deck that could help -- the jack of hearts. Royal flush the hard way. Ursus Aureus' royal cherry. Talk about your bad beats. Great hands.

It was decided by acclamation at the final table (okay, I brought it up and no one complained) to move the start time of the WWdNot up 30 minutes, to 22:00 ET. So be sure to join us next week at our new time in the WWdNot the Guinness Invitational. PokerStars, 22:00 ET, password is monkey. Note also how I've very cleverly run the "Not" into the "WWdN" to form "WWdNot". Credit to Joanne for referring to this as the "dot not", which gave me the idea.

26 October 2006

Play poker from your casino/hotel room

Progressive Gaming International and Harrah's Team Up to Offer New Server-Based Game: The World Series of Poker(R) ''Peer to Peer'' Texas Hold'em System for Both Wired and Wireless Formats in All Regulated Gaming Venues Worldwide

LAS VEGAS, Oct 23, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Progressive Gaming International Corporation (NASDAQ: PGIC) ("PGIC"), a leading provider of diversified content and technology products and services used in the gaming industry worldwide, announced today it intends to introduce an exciting new way to play Texas Hold'em poker: the World Series of Poker(R) "Peer to Peer" Texas Hold'em game.

The World Series of Poker "Peer to Peer" Texas Hold'em gaming system will be designed to allow patrons to play poker on a wired or wireless device on a secure intranet server managed from within a casino in jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. A poker player will be able to play World Series of Poker "Peer to Peer" Texas Hold'em at a variety of locations within a casino, without the need to be physically located at a poker table. Players may be able to play within the casino property at a bar, restaurant, and even poolside.

more

My Mookie

Played The Mookie at Full Tilt last night. Despite an extended campaign to get the turnout up to at least 80, the attendance fell well short of that goal. I think we can expect Al to keep up with the disgusting pictures until more folks show up.

I was doing okay until I fell in love with my flopped TPTK and ran headlong into wwonka69's set of sixes. I doubled him up and knocked my stack in half. I hung on for quite a while longer, but never recovered from that. In fact, I didn't win another hand.

Played $2/$4 limit Hold'em for about an hour while waiting for The Mookie. Actually came out ahead for the first time in recent memory.

Also played a $8+$0.70 turbo Tier One Tournamet Ticket Tournament. That just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Was effectively card dead. Won just three hands the whole tournament. I did go out in a blaze of glory though. Stone cold bluff on the flop against another shortie. Unfortunately, he'd caught a big enough piece of the flop to make the call.

Tonight is WWdN: Not The Surflexus Invitational at PokerStars, 22:30 ET. Password is monkey. This tournament was originally set up to appeal to the west coast players who find the Tuesday WWdN start time of 20:30 ET a bit early. Over the last few weeks I've noticed a vast majority of the players have listed locations in the Eastern and Central time zones. Since we seem to have missed the mark as far as appealing to the west coast folks, I'm thinking about bumping the time up to 22:00 ET. Any feedback on this will be welcome.

25 October 2006

Another less than thrilling WWdN

Less than thrilling for me. Wyscan and HighOnPokr looked to be having pretty good nights.

I didn't get a whole lot in the way of cards and mostly stole my way to a reasonably healthy stack. I was never close to the chip lead, but neither was I dangerously close to busting out until my semi-steal attempt with ATo ran into PugMaggie's pocket nines. She was getting short-stacked and decided to make her stand, pushing all-in against my 3BB raise. I pondered for quite a while and finally made the call. It was the right decision -- me just a slight dog and getting 2-to-1 on the call -- it just had an unfortunate outcome for me. I hung on for quite a few hands after that, but never really recovered.

I need to find a way to never sit at the same table with HighOnPokr. I swear he can see my cards. We're in the blinds. It folds to Jordan. He completes and I'm happy to check my Brunson. Flop comes 22T. Birds are singing in my head. Check, check. Turn is a K. Jordan checks, I very coyly check also. River brings a 8. Jordan checks yet again. I bet 200 -- pot-sized, but we're at the river with no action so far. Jordan folds. Best flop I've had in ages, and I win 1BB.

Several other times we're in similar situations -- it folds to the blinds, Jordan completes, I check. He checks the flop, I bet my crap hoping to steal and he comes over the top. Or it goes the other way. I catch something on the flop, bet it exactly as I would if I were stealing, and he folds. It's uncanny. And it wasn't just last night. It seems to happen every time we're at a table together. I'm telling you, he can see my cards.

My internet connection from the hotel has been uncharacteristically good of late so I'll probably play The Mookie tonight at Full Tilt. I played some $2/$4 limit there last night before the WWdN trying to clear some more of that big bonus. If I can learn to listen to that little voice in my head I could actually be pretty good at that game. But, alas, I often feel the need to verify whether the voice is correct, and it usually costs me dearly. At the rate I'm going, I'll be out of FT bankroll long before I'm out of bonus. But at least my connection was good.

Speaking of the hotel, I've found another reason to move aside from the often unreliable internet service. Whoever is staying in the room one floor up from mine has regularly chosen 1:00 AM as the time to begin training his dancing elephants. Actually, elephants would probably be quieter.

23 October 2006

Monied At The Hoy

Had a pretty good Monday At The Hoy. Got some decent cards, apparently made a few good plays, and managed to finish 3rd, though I think that was as much due to staying out of the way toward the end as it was good play on my part. Surflexus continued his tradition of making good laydowns to my strong hands. At least I think they were good laydowns. I didn't actually see. I need to figure out how to outfox him.

My funniest hand of the night was when we were down to three and, having been card-challenged for some time, I finally got some decent starters, KQs. Mungo36, who had a pretty big chip lead, had been running roughshod over the table for quite a while. He did his typical raise to 666 (blinds 100/200), Iggy folded, and I called from the BB. The flop is AKQ, two-suited. I've been playing like a real wuss for the last couple dozen hands so now's the time to take advantage of it. I check. Mungo36 does a Hoy, putting me all-in minus one. Of course, I call. The turn is a blank and I resist the urge to toss in my last chip. Mungo36 checks also. The river brings another K. I can't resist any longer and put in my last chip. Mungo36 calls and turns over, you guessed it, the hammer! He was suited and caught four to the flush on the flop, so his putting me almost all-in wasn't a complete bluff. Still, I got a good laugh out of it. I suggested it would have been funnier if he'd folded when I tossed in my last chip.

My final hand was pretty stupid. Iggy and I were almost even when I get A4s and raise to 600 (100/200/25). Iggy calls. Flop is 4QK, two diamonds and only one of my suit. I caught a piece so I figure I need to bet something. I toss 1000 into a 1200 pot. Iggy pushes all-in for another 4211. This is a huge overbet. The safe move is obviously to fold, but I keep wondering about the big bet. I'm thinking flush draw, meaning I'm ahead, so I call. I was right about the flush draw. He had two diamonds. Unfortunately, one of them was the king. Stupid move on my part calling with bottom pair.

Congrats to Iggy for winning and to Mungo36 for playing through the cabernet fog to take second. Tomorrow is the WWdN at PokerStars, 20:00 EDT, password monkey.

Hard Rockin'

Having not played live poker in almost two months, I've been getting really antsy to feel some real cards and chips. The live poker situation here in central Florida is rather grim. Florida has this ridiculous law that allows poker, including home poker, but makes it illegal to bet more than $2 at a time. This is actually an improvement over the previous situation where the total pot was limited to $10, but it still limits legal poker to the just screwing around level. And from what I've read, the $1/$2 limit games you find in the casinos and at the tracks are everything you would expect from such a game -- exhorbitantly high rake and percent seeing flop approaching 90%.

For some reason, tournament poker has escaped these archaic limits. So, if you're looking for legal no-limit poker, tournaments are the only way to go.

With all this in mind, on Saturday night I decided to make the 60-mile drive to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa. Traffic was horrible getting out of Orlando and not much better the rest of the trip. It took me about an hour and twenty minutes.

I bypassed the ground level parking in favor of the parking garage. As I stepped into the elevator to get to the casino level I was hit with a smell that I'd long ago forgotten but which instantly screamed, "Casino!", at me. I don't know if it's some kind of air freshener used only in casinos or if it's just the mix of two dozen varieties of cologne and perfume in that tiny space, but it's a smell I only recall coming across in casinos. It created a feeling of coming back to a familiar place of good memories, even though I'd never been here before. Scent memory is a powerful thing.

The casino itself is little but a giant room filled with slot machines. Poker is apparently the only live game in the place.

I wandered about a bit to get a feel for the place and eventually found my way to the poker room. I've only played poker live in a casino once before (well, twice, but one of those was a lifetime ago, so I don't count it anymore), so I'm still a bit intimidated by the whole thing. I decided to railbird for a while and try to get a feel for how things worked.

Right next to the rail they have a couple "Poker Pro" all-computer tables they use for the cheaper tournaments. No chips, no cards, no dealer. Nothing but touch screens inset in the table at each player position and a large flat screen display in the center of the table. It's like playing online only all the people are physically in the same room. Since about half the tells exhibited by most players involve looking at or handling the chips, this would seem to have little benefit over playing online.

At the live tables they were spreading $1/$2 Hold'em, $2/$2 Hold'em, $2/$2 'Action' Hold'em, $1/$2 Omaha, $1/$2 Omaha Hi-Lo, and $1/$2 Stud. I have no idea what the 'action' part is. I looked around for some kind of explanation but couldn't find any. I didn't bother to ask. There were also tournaments from $120 to $1050.

Maybe it's just a west coast thing, but I was under the impression that most card rooms had gone non-smoking quite a while ago. Not so at the Hard Rock. The main casino floor had a lot fewer smokers than one would find in most Vegas Casinos (at least the last time I was there) and there didn't seem to be all that many smokers in the poker room, but there were some. (No offense to you smokers. I'm allergic and sitting in close proximity to smokers causes me significant discomfort.) They did have a sign posted saying the poker room would be going smoke-free as of 1 November.

After watching the action for maybe twenty minutes, I put my name in for $1/$2. I was tempted to try a $120 tournament, but there no names on the list. I'm not sure if that meant they were running effectively non-stop or if nobody was interested in playing at that level. I might have been willing to go for the $225 tournament, but there were no names on that list either. I figured I'd get my feet wet at $1/$2 and then ask about the tournament situation.

For the next half hour I watched my name slowly climb the list. The whole time I was thinking, "I could be back in my hotel room playing online, earning bonus money, and not sucking in all this second-hand smoke." Based on what I'd seen, I figured I was still 30-45 minutes from getting seated when I decided I didn't want to stand around any longer. So I turned around and left without having been dealt a single card.

I could have sat at Omaha, but I've played just enough Omaha to know I stink at it. Which probably meant I'd have an advantage over about 80% of the other people at the table. I guess I could have played Omaha while waiting for a seat at Hold'em. At least I'd have been sitting rather than leaning against the rail.

I'm willing to give it another try after the poker room goes non-smoking. And given that Neteller has announced they're going to block US player transfers to gambling sites, I may have little choice but to make the run to Tampa every couple weeks. This sucks.

Chips Ahoy!

Over the past year, through affiliate poker site offers, I have acquired three of the cheap Chinese dice poker chip sets. Three may seem a bit excessive, but new poker site deals kept coming up at ITH and I already had copies of the poker books I wanted, so the chips seemed the best of the available items. I figured two sets would allow me to host a decent sized tournament and I could always give a set as a gift.

But having three sets got me thinking. If I could round it off with a few more chips of higher denominations I could do deep stacks tournaments. (The chips don't actually have denominations, just colors. But I was thinking along the lines of sticking with standard color and denomination assignments. I'm funny that way.) So I started looking for a case that would securely hold 1,000 chips.

The search eventually lead me here. This was the best case I could find for 1,000+ chips at anything approaching this price. The only other sturdy alternative appeared to be something like a Pelican or Stormcase. I have a Stormcase for some of my radio gear. I like it a lot, but the wheeled cases aren't dimensioned properly for chips. To fit 1,000 chips you'd end up with a case that's much bigger than the chips. And price-wise you're already pretty far up there so you might as well go for the case that will hold 2,000 chips. And that case is so big it's intimidating.

I sort-of moved to Orlando before I did anything about assembling all my chips into one giant set. I say 'sort-of' because while I've been here for several months, most of my belongings, including my chips, are still in California.

So here I am, chip rich, yet without a chip in sight. And I'm dying to get some of my co-workers involved in poker. So I get the idea of buying another cheap set of chips so I'll have some here in Orlando. I thought about doing another new-user deal at ITH, but I've already played at all the sites they currently have deals with.

While looking for chips I ended up back at Poker Chips Depot where I'd first checked out the 2,000-chip case. Since I was last there they have built chip sets around this case. The prices are quite good and one of the available sets uses the exact same chips of which I already have 1,500, meaning I'd be able to mix and match chips to cover almost anything from a low level cash game to a multi-table 10,000 starting chip tournament.

So I'm now the proud owner of a set of 2,000 poker chips. I picked colors and quantities to mix with what I already have. The original sets were heavy on the white (1) and red (5) chips, so I ordered what would seem a disproportionate number of green (25) and black (100) chips, adding purple (500) and yellow (1000) chips to the mix. If I deviate from the standard colors and say the yellow chips are worth 5,000, I'm just a bit shy of 1,000,000 in chip value. Deep stacks with rebuys anyone?

The chips and the case came boxed separately. Once I got all the chips in the case, the first thing I noticed was that this thing is heavy! The chips alone weigh over 56 pounds. The case adds probably another 10 pounds. It's a good thing the case has wheels because my back wouldn't put up with moving it very far otherwise.

My general impression is that the case is sturdy enough to hold and transport the chips as long as reasonable care is taken during transport. I wouldn't check this at the airport and expect it to come out intact at the other end.

The latches are sufficient to keep the case from popping open during normal handling. They are the type with a loop of wire that fits over a fixed post and compresses against the post when the latch is closed. These strike me as much more secure than the simple flip latches used on the other cases I have. But I'm stil not sure they would keep the case secure if it was dropped from more than a few inches.

The handle on the case is sturdy and seems well attached. The case does not flex at all when lifted by the handle. Again, I don't know that I'd trust it with rough treatment by professional baggage handlers, but it should serve adequately for carrying the chips to and from poker games.

As mentioned previously, the case has wheels. There is also an extendable handle to make it easier to pull the case. This handle feels a bit on the flimsy side, having quite a bit of flex to it when pulling the fully loaded case. My guess would be this is the weakest link and will be the first part to break. Still, with a bit of care, I don't think it's likely to break soon.

The chips are stored in two layers of 1,000 each. The top layer is formed by four removable trays, each holding five rows of 50 chips. The trays are constructed of wood covered in velvet. They have sturdy woven fabric handles secured to each end.

The bottom layer is a single velvet-covered wooden tray with ten rows holding 100 chips each. The dividers stick up above the top of the chips, so the top trays rest on the dividers, not on the chips in the lower level. There's actually room for about 105 chips in each row, but the chips fit very snuggly and it's almost impossible to remove them without having some finger room at the end of each row.

The bottom tray is secured to the case with screws and, I believe, adds to the overall strength of the case.



The chips I got are the cheap plastic Chinese chips with the metal inserts. I have no delusions of these being casino-quality chips, but they're certainly an improvement over the all-plastic chips readily available in many discount department stores.


They should provide many years of service (particularly if they get used as much as the 'free' chips I got through ITH). And I really can't complain at all about the price. Less than 6 cents per chip, not including delivery.

20 October 2006

Two Not Monies in a Row

I monied for the second week in a row in the WWdN: Not The. Third this time instead of second. Not sure I like the direction this is headed, but I'll take the money.

Congratulations to hacker59 for the win and to surflexus for getting next week's tournament named after him. Extremely welled play, both of you. Helluva laydown, surf.

Turnout was down this week. Probably a combination of darval still being without internet and not doing any blogging and Joanne not pimping us on Card Squad this week. Still, we had a few new faces and the competition was extremely tough, as always.

Hoyazo has been doing in depth hand analyses recently. I'd like to have a go at a similar thing with a few hands from last night. Sadly, I do not have a hair trigger on my screen capture, so there will not be pictures of the hands at each step along the way. You'll have to make due with my descriptions.

My first big hand came in level 3. Let's call this hand #1, just in case anyone wants to refer to it in comments. We're six-handed. I get ATo in the CO. Not normally a hand I get overly excited about, but I've been doing nothing but folding (and timing out -- again. Damn you Extended Stay Deluxe!) for a very long time and it's a hand I don't mind seeing a flop with. I raise to 150. (Blinds are 25/50.) The button calls and the blinds fold. Two of us see a flop of 43T, two of them spades. TPTK on a flop that's unlikely to have helped my opponent more than it did me. The spades are obviously a concern. I bet 300 into a 375 pot. In retrospect, I should have bet a bit more than the pot, say 450, to cut off odds on the flush draw. My opponent raises to 800. I've got 915 left. What do I do?

Hand #2. We're at level 7, blinds at 100/200, ante 25, down to four players. I get a rather lackluster K3s in the BB. UTG folds, button puts in a rather weak raise to 500. SB calls. I'm in the chip lead by a narrow margin, but have both of the players in this pot covered by quite a bit. I decide I can afford to make the call. If I hit the flop big I might be able to stack one of these guys and get us off the bubble. If I don't hit the flop big, I'm probably gone.

The flop comes 6KK, rainbow. I think that qualifies as big, though I'm really hating my 3. Check, check, check. Turn brings a 5 of the only suit not already represented. SB min-bets. 200 into a 1600 pot. I have no clue what this means. I suppose the safer route, being concerned about my kicker, would have been to just call, but then I'm still confused about the min-bet and I've learned nothing. I raise it to 800. Still a pretty weak bet given the size of the pot, but it's just a feeler. Button folds, SB calls.

Now comes the card of which poker dreams are made. The case king floats in on the river. I'm no longer concerned about my weak kicker. The SB bets 600 into a 3200 pot. He has 3121 remaining. Obviously I'm going to raise. How much?

Finally, hand #3. This is very late in the tournament. We're down to three. I have a very narrow chip lead. We're all close enough that one hand could swing it in any direction. Blinds are 200/400 with antes of 25. I get 88 on the button. Decent starters for three-handed, so I go with the standard 3BB raise, making it 1200 to go. SB raises 2000 to 3200. BB folds. What's your move?

Again, congratulations to hacker59 on the win. Please join us next week for the WWdN: Not The surflexus Invitational, 26 October, PokerStars, 22:30 ET, password monkey.

18 October 2006

Not WWdN Tonight

I skipped playing the WWdN tonight. No particular reason. Well, I was playing a tournament at Full Tilt and didn't want to strain my fragile internet connection with the incredible demands of two poker sessions going at once. I've bitched about the internet here in my hotel before, but the horribleness of the connection just keeps on keeping on. It was particularly bad with Full Tilt tonight, though I gather I wasn't the only one having problems.

Having read Mookie's piece about Iak's Full Tilt tournament token strategy, I had to give it a go myself. I played in a number of qualifiers at Interpoker trying to win my way into their $500k guaranteed tournament, back when $500k was a big thing and not less than half the prize pool Stars and Party offer every week.

I knew from those qualifiers that a different strategy was called for, particularly when it starts getting close to "the money". That was a lesson I stupidly learned the hard way. We were on the bubble, I had the second biggest stack and could have sat out and gotten a ticket to the big show, but I got involved in a hand with the chip leader. I don't recall all the details, but it goes to the river and I've got the second nut hand. He needs two specific cards to beat me. He pushes all-in. I think for a long while and finally decide the odds of him having those two cards are slim, so I call. Of course, he's got the nuts, and I give one of the short stacks a free ride to the $500k.

I finally got my ticket to the $500k, though it cost me a lot more than it should have. And I finished the big tournament well out of the money. But I learned a lot, so it wasn't time or money completely wasted.

So tonight I jumped into a 2-table $6+$0.60 Tier One SnG. I got one decent hand the whole time, AA, and everyone folded to my wimp-ass min-raise. I guess they all know that trick. I finished in 8th, which is nothing to write home about, but considering the cards I was dealt I was reasonably happy with my play. Plus, again considering the crap cards, the overall strategy showed promise. One or two decent hands and I would have been able to cruise into the final four.

Next I tried a $8+$0.80 turbo. Same basic format, but the blinds go up every two minutes and there are five tournament tokens awarded instead of four. I again didn't get much in the way of cards until I was getting rather seriously short stacked. I caught a couple decent hands and was able to ride those into the winners' circle. It's pretty stupid considering all the prizes are the same, but Full Tilt plays the tournament all the way out. I took second, though everybody realized it was dumb and there were lots of all-ins with garbage once we'd made it past the bubble.

Then I went back to the $6+$0.60 because nobody was signing up for the $8+$0.80. I bubbled, mostly due to a couple other players getting lucky on desperate all-ins. I wasn't in much better shape, but I had a slightly larger stack. My stupid bloody connection also crapped out on me right in the middle of one big hand. I didn't get to see the board so I have no idea how it would have played out. I gather I was folded because my chip stack was somewhat smaller when I re-connected.

So, one for three applying the Iakaris Token Hunt strategy, with one bubble. Not terrible and I'm just slightly ahead money-wise. If I'd gotten any kind of cards at all in that first tournament I'm sure I could have gotten a lot further.

Now I'm debating whether I should use my $26 token for a Tier Two SnG or if I should play it for money. I'll probably go for Tier Two in the hope of getting in to Miami Don's Big Game this Sunday. Though I'm sure I'll be thoroughly outclassed there.

16 October 2006

Razz'berries in the WPBT

The WPBT "R is for Razz" tournament was last night at Full Tilt. I once again had a terrible connection. Not as bad as on Thursday last, but annoying nonetheless. I'd like to blame the connection for my poor performance, but since I finished second on Thursday with an even worse connection, that probably wouldn't fly.

Razz is mostly about getting cards. Before the last card falls, two-thirds of your cards are right there for all the world to see. If you've got crap, everyone knows it. You can bluff if your down cards are bad, but you need to have good up cards or you're not going anywhere.

Last night I got dealt a long series of great 7-stud starting hands. I think I had three decent starting hands the whole time. I got bricks on fourth street in two of them and on the third, as good as my cards were, somebody had better. My hand history, which for some reason doesn't include the first two levels, shows me winning one hand. By that time I was seriously short-stacked and it was a small pot that only forestalled the inevitable for a short while. And I was bluffing because I was actually paired in the first three cards. I just happened to have two great up-cards and the other player got unlucky on fourth street. I have recollection of winning another very small pot early. Not a good night for me at all.

Of course, things were not improved by the fact that this was a crowd that, while probably not expert in Razz, had more than a vague clue of what they were doing. Winning in Razz ring games is generally pretty easy due to the presence of at least one or two complete idiots at most tables. The kind of people who will call your fourth street bet when you're showing 23 and they have two face cards up. There were none of those people in this tournament.

Tonight is Mondays At The Hoy, PokerStars, 22:00 EDT. Password is hammer. Hope to see you there.

13 October 2006

Not monied again!

Right off the bat, before I get into anything about the tournament, I want to send a big "Thanks for nothing" to GuestTek, Inc. at globalsuite.net for providing one of the worst internet connections I've ever used. I'm still living in a hotel here in Orlando and, as such, am subject to the often crappy internet service provided by GuestTek and the hotel here. To paraphrase Joanne, it not only sucks, it swallows. The crappy internet connection, more than any single other thing, is going to force me to find more permanent housing here so I can get real internet access.

I also have to apologize to everyone who was sitting at my table. As frustrating as I'm sure it was watching me time out again and again, I assure you it was even more frustrating at this end.

Enough of that; on to the tournament. Pretty good turnout again tonight. With the last second arrival of Hoyazo, we had 21 tonight. Too bad you couldn't stick around longer, Hoy. ;-) Darval is still without internet at home so I had to take care of all the hosting duties. Tiring work, that.

I was going to add descriptions of a few hands, but it's very late here and I'm getting tired. So I'll just say there were some good hands, there were some bad hands, chips got exchanged, players were eliminated, I went home $52 richer, and, most importantly, I finally get to name the tournament after myself. I may post more tomorrow (actually later today), but that's it for now. Congrats to hacker59 on a fine tournament.

And, just once more, let me say how painfully awful the GuestTek internet services are. Extended Stay Deluxe, listen up. I'm going to be leaving your hotel simply because of the freaking awful internet access. Even at $4.99 per stay, it's a rip-off.

12 October 2006

My Kowboys got Ironed

Played The Mookie at Full Tilt last night. I was actually doing okay, mostly due to one hand where my semi-bluff with a flush draw was apparently the best hand and PercentileDoom folded to my all-in. At least he said my flush draw was the best hand. I probably shouldn't admit that he read me cold, but he did.

Then came this hand. I was thrilled to see smizmiatch raise it pre-flop and then irongirl01 come over the top. With over 750 in the pot already and this still being fairly early in the tournament, I figured a big move here was warranted. There was a good chance I would take it down right now, and if I got a caller I was still in great shape. Or so I thought. I push, irongirl01 calls, and I'm suddenly way behind. The cavalry did not charge over the hill to rescue my kowboys and I moved from being in great shape to being in a bad place. I lasted a while longer, but this was the fatal blow. Ended up finishing 34th of 58.

I had earlier in the day taken advantage of the Full Tilt 50% reload bonus, so as long as I was there I decided to play a bit of limit to work off some of the bonus. Full table limit has gotten so tight it's almost not worth the trouble. The $2/$4 and $3/$6 tables at Full Tilt all had percent seeing flop in the low 20's. Not to mention all having waiting lists. I ended up playing three tables of $1/$2. Caught some good hands early and was up a fair amount, but lost most of it back and ended the night roughly even.

Between early evening play, the Mookie, and the following limit play, I cleared $12 of bonus, which is way more than I've ever cleared in a single evening at Full Tilt before. Sad statement about bonuses at Full Tilt there. Last month I cleared $90 of bonus at William Hill in less time.

If you've cashed out of some other sites like I have, you might want to move some to Full Tilt to get in on the bonus. Full Tilt has said they're staying in the US market and, slow bonus clearance rate or not, I think they deserve the support of the poker community for taking a stand. They will be seeing more of my business than they have in the past.

Tonight is WWdN: Not The Ursus Aureus Invitational, PokerStars, 22:30 EDT. Password is monkey. Please join us.

11 October 2006

Lackluster WWdN

Played the WWdN last night and absolutely could not get any traction at all. My chip count only went in an upward direction a couple times, and then by just a few chips. Finished somewhere in the middle of the field. I had Hoyazo just to my left for my last half hour or so, but we only went head-to-head once and I quickly ran away when he came over the top of my bluff. My night ended when my all-in with pocket eights ran into AQs which rivered a flush.

Tonight is The Mookie at Full Tilt, 22:00 EDT.

10 October 2006

They call me Mr. Victimizer

Hoyazo gave me a nice write-up in his blog today, so I guess it's only fair to do the same. Yes, it's true. I am The Victimizer. That's Mister Victimizer to you.

I'm not going to say much about the hand in question other than I was playing the player, not the cards. From here I will just quote Hoyazo.

In my mind, although the Victimizer hasn't been playing the Hoy long, he clearly knows my slow-raise strategy with pocket Aces, and he is using it against me. So I know he must have Aces. But at this point, even facing the third raise preflop, with still a solid 600 or so chips left in my stack, I'm not going to fold the Kings. So I move it all in.


Given that Hoy was convinced I had the aces, I don't think I made a bad play here at all. It was a convincing bluff that didn't work. Nothing to feel bad about there. Once Hoy's gone all-in, I'm getting 4-to-1 from the pot and am just slightly worse than 2-to-1 against if he has anything short of aces. That was a distinct possibility, but given his tricky nature, I can't see him putting in the big raise pre-flop with aces. If he'd min-raised I probably would have run for the hills.

So I made the call, hit the flop big, and Hoy went home early. That's poker, babee.

I'm sure you'll take your revenge before long, Hoy.

I went on to take fifth. Out of the money, but respectable given the company.

See you tonight at the WWdN.

09 October 2006

Moving up

As I think I mentioned in a previous entry, I've been toying with the idea of moving up to some more expensive tournaments. Not that I've been finishing in the money so consistently in the $10 SnGs that it's obviously time, but more the apparent impending implosion of online poker that makes me feel I should do something with the bankroll while I still have a chance. I've been playing way, way below what my bankroll will reasonably allow so it's not like a few $50 or $100 tournaments would put me in any danger of going broke.

Anyway, this weekend I took some action on this sort-of plan. Largely spur of the moment, just like most of my big poker decisions, I jumped into a $30+$3 SnG at Full Tilt. Got total crap cards and watched as a couple of lucky jokers sucked up a lot of chips and started bullying the table. I finished in 6th.

I immediately jumped into another of the same, again getting total crap cards, but this time hanging on to go out on the bubble.

Last night I played a couple $20+$2 SnGs at PokerStars. Yet again, I finished out of the money in both.

My record of moving up and finishing out of the money in all four tournaments would seem to not bode well for this endeavor, but my observations differ somewhat from the results. In none of the four tournaments did I see anything that scared me. There was a fairly regular mix of donkeys, lucky donkeys, and decent players. The least of the players in any of the regular blogger tournaments would have not been uncomfortable at any of these tables.

So, until the bankroll starts getting thin, I think I'm going to stick with the slightly more expensive tournaments. OTOH, if my cards don't improve soon (I knew I blew several weeks worth of luck in the last WWdN: Not The) I may be hitting the thin bankroll stage a lot sooner than expected. I'll keep you posted.

Tonight is Mondays At The Hoy. 22:00 EDT at PokerStars. Password is hammer. Hope to see you there.

07 October 2006

Deep stacks limit

It's been a long time since I last subjected myself to one of the PokerStars deep stack tournaments. My first experience was with the Friday limit hold'em version, maybe six months ago. I got into it spur of the moment -- clearly a mistake given how long these things can last -- and seven and a half hours later I busted out in something like 27th. Along the way I seriously considered suicide several times. I think limit hold'em is a horrible tournament game. I theorized that the larger starting stacks and longer levels would allow for skill to play a much larger part. Perhaps they do, but limit hold'em still sucks as a tournament game.

So, why would I want to repeat this nightmare? Beats me, but I did. Tonight I rushed home from work, casting aside the opportunity to drink fancy $12 martinis at some trendy bar with my co-workers, and signed up for the deep stack limit hold'em tournament. (Sorry to digress, but I just have to say that a martini is made with gin, dry vermouth, ice, and an olive, though I prefer mine with a twist. Expensive vodka mixed with Cointreau or Kahlua or Peach Schnapps -- Peach Schnapps? -- does not magically become a martini just because you pour it into a martini glass. A chocolate martini? Give me a break. Call me old school, but I like the martini of Hawkeye Pierce. Gin poured over cracked ice, gently swirled, then strained into an iced glass while the bartender quietly whispers the word "vermouth" under his breath. That is a martini.)

I should have gone for the foo-foo martinis. What a colossal waste of time! I've never played at one table with so many slow, lucky donkeys. At the first break one idiot had a VP$IP of 80%. I don't think I've ever seen one person get so consistently lucky. The table VP$IP was over 40%. Frequently there would be six people seeing the flop following a capped pre-flop betting round. I seriously haven't seen play like this since I hit up the beginners tables at Party. Several times the suckouts were so bad I had to sit out and just walk away. I took a 20-minute dinner break right in the middle of play because of the suckouts and just generally horrible play. Shortly after the second break, the 80% idiot, who had built his T5000 starting stack to over T12,000 at one point, busted out. So the donkey play caught up with him, but not before he ruined the chances of a number of decent players to get somewhere in this tournament.

I made it past the fourth break, but busted shortly thereafter, in 70th-something place. Considering how few hands I won it wasn't a bad finish. Well out of the money though.

One of the benefits of these deep stack, long level tournaments is that you get to spend more time observing the play of the opponents at your first table. This is especially so with limit since it's virtually impossible for anyone to bust out in the first hour. One of the drawbacks of these deep stack, long level tournaments is that you get to spend more time observing the play of the opponents at your first table. And when they're fools who aren't paying any attention to the game and are constantly timing out, a few days taking advantage of the accomodations in Gitmo start to look good in comparison. I don't think my table played any more hands per 30-minute level than are normally played in an average 10-minute SnG level.

This whole thing starts to remind me of my relationship with Sears. When I first got out of college and moved to California, I went to Sears, where America shops, to buy a refrigerator for my new apartment. Sears had given me a credit card with a whopping $50 limit when I was still in college with no job, so I reasoned now that I was making infinitely more money than I was when they gave me the card, it would be logical to expect them to increase my credit limit to, say, $350, so I could charge a refrigerator. I won't bore you with all the fine details, but suffice it to say that after two weeks of making do with an ice chest in my apartment, Sears and I parted company without having consummated a deal on a refrigerator. (And they managed to screw up application of the payment I made closing out my account, so months later I get a call asking why I haven't paid the bill. They never did remove all the accumulated interest charges.) I swore I would never shop at Sears again.

Yet, every decade or so I seem compelled to re-experience the pain of shopping at Sears, just to remind myself why I hate Sears and will never shop there. I did it when I decided Sears would be a good place to buy a new vacuum cleaner and waited a full 90 minutes for a manager to come and authorize my check (which they would have accepted without question if I hadn't been honest and told them I had recently moved and not gotten new checks yet). And then I waited another 30 minutes for them to locate the thing in the warehouse.

So I'll probably subject myself to the torture of deep stacks limit hold'em again in another six months. Unless, just maybe, I've learned my lesson for good this time. Yeah, right.

I feel much better now that I've vented.

06 October 2006

WWdN: Not The Budohorseman Invitational


Great turnout for the WWdN: Not The last night. Twenty-three participants. Not quite up to the standards of the Tuesday WWdN or The Mookie, but we're building momentum. Thanks to everyone who played.

I finally monied. I've been setting this thing up for months now and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've done anything but contribute. My cards were absolutely on fire. I don't recall any single tournament I've played where I've gotten so many premium hands. I recall looking at the tournament lobby, seeing that we had one minute left in the first level, and thinking, "I've played more hands already than I usually play in an entire tournament."

Getting off to a good start let me be the one applying pressure on others for a change. I love being in that position. It's so much more fun and so much more profitable than being on the business end of the pressure.

There were a number of interesting hands. If I get more time later I may post on some of them in more detail.

Anyway, congratulations to Budohorseman. His prediction of WWdN: Not The Budohorseman 2 Invitational failed to come to fruition due to his victory. Second and first in consecutive weeks. Not bad at all. And a fine showing from Ursus Aureus, who I believe joined us for the first time last night.

Please plan on joining us next week in the WWdN: Not The Ursus Aureus Invitational. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

05 October 2006

The Mookie

Excellent turnout for The Mookie tonight (technically last night, at least here in the east). Fifty-three showed up at Full Tilt to participate. I'm hoping this bodes well for the WWdN: Not The tonight. (PokerStars, 22:30 EDT, password is monkey.)

This one got off to quite the exciting start. The very first hand I'm in the SB and get dealt suited Big Slick. Love_elf, on the button, calls 30, I make it 120, the BB folds, and love_elf calls my raise. The flop comes AT4, rainbow, with one of my suit. I bet 150. Love_elf thinks for a while and makes it 350. I really hate making big moves on the first hand, but I'm thinking I'm ahead right now and there's enough in the pot already to make this a good first hand, so I want to end it here. I push. Love_elf pondered again for quite a while and, to my surprise, made the call. She turned over AQo. The turn and river brought her no relief. First hand and I've doubled up. Sorry, love_elf. That had to be a very tough call.

Sadly, I was not able to take advantage of my "big" stack. I dropped down to 2500 after one Tango with SurfKiller and hovered near there for a very long time. I was able to hang in by stealing the blinds every so often, but couldn't catch the big hands needed to get anywhere with this crowd. Finally, short-stacked and having gone all-in unchallenged once or twice a round for quite a while, ToddCommish called me. He showed AQs to my massive T9s. Neither of us hit anything, but he outkicked me and I was left with less than the ante. My 15-chip all-in didn't scare anyone away, and I was out in 16th.

Oh well, I won the SnG I played while waiting for The Mookie, so all was not lost last night. I've been debating whether I should move way up in tournament level while there's still a chance. I normally play at the $10 level, occasionally going for a $20 event. I'm thinking I should give the $100 tournaments a try. If I knew I could get a table like at that SnG tonight I'd jump on it in a second. Could be quite a while before I get much opportunity to play again. As they say, make hay while the sun shines. OTOH, I know it's a real donkey move to push a lot of money in the pot just because it's the last hand of the night.

If anyone has some tips for places to play live in the Orlando area I'd love to hear them. I was checking out the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa online tonight. They apparently run SnG's at various levels all day. Unfortunately, the price is just a bit out of my comfort zone and the rake at the lower end is rather steep. ($100+$20 is the lowest SnG they had listed on their site.) Ring games are a joke here since Florida law allows for a maximum bet of $2. So all that you can find legally is $1/$2 limit. The Hard Rock rake is 10% to a max of $5 with a minimum of $1. At $1/$2 that's effectively highway robbery. And I thought the $4 rake at the $2/$4 game at Pechanga was bad. Anyway, Streets & Trips says the Hard Rock is only an hour from here. Maybe I'll go check it out this weekend.

Hope to see everyone tonight at PokerStars.

04 October 2006

The last WWdN?

Played what I sincerely hope is not the last WWdN tournament last night. Finished 8th, in the money for the first time in ages in this tournament. 75 players joined in; a pretty decent turnout considering the goings-on of the last few days.

I managed to get some decent cards and make them pay. Also stole a lot more blinds than usual with this crowd. I realized maybe halfway through that I'd only shown two hands the whole time. I don't know if that was why I got away with so many blinds or if this crowd was just collectively off their game last night. Or maybe I just happened into the right situation at the right time. Anyway, thanks for the blinds, guys.

Tonight is The Mookie at Full Tilt, assuming they're still in operation at the 22:00. Password is vegas1 if you're intersted in joining.

03 October 2006

Interpoker closed to US players

From the Interpoker web site:

Dear player:

Due to the imminent passing of the Federal Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act on September 30th 2006, we are no longer accepting wagers from residents of the United States. We regret to inform you that from 11am EST on 3rd October, 2006, we will be closing all your gaming accounts.

Your balance, minus any uncleared bonuses, will be refunded to you by check within the next 3 to 4 weeks.

As the world’s oldest and most respected online casino we very much hope in the months to come that the USA will see fit to license and regulate online gaming so that we can once again offer our services to you.

We apologize for any inconvenience and express our sincere thanks for your patronage.

Yours truly,

Ryan Hartley
Casino Manager

02 October 2006

Full Tilt's take on the legislative nightmare

Full Tilt sort of reassures players

WPBT Circuit Event #9

Played in the WPBT PLO8 event at Full Tilt last night. Not much of a turnout. Only 18 showed up. Who knows if that was due to the game, the venue, or the schedule.

I did a bit of practicing with PLO8 in preparation, playing a couple cheap tournaments and some ring. Not that it did me much good. You'd think in a game where you get four cards you'd see a lot of decent starting hands. I sure didn't. Of course, I'm not positive I'd know a really good PLO8 starting hand if it slapped me upside the head. But I'm guessing two-suited hands like AK23 or AA23 would qualify.

I think I had A2 ONCE the entire tournament and the flop came all high on that hand. The one time I flopped the nut low I ended up all-in and lost chips because I had to split the split. From what I've read since, that's a rookie mistake, tossing lots of chips into a pot you have little chance of scooping and are likely to have to split your portion.

PLO8 is apparently about scooping and 3/4-ing, and playing only hands that have a good chance of doing one or the other. That might work in ring PLO8 when you can wait forever for such a hand, but in tournament play you don't have that luxury. So it would seem tournament PLO8 is mostly about getting lucky and somewhat about taking advantage of those who haven't a clue what they're doing.

Anyway, I finished 10th, just out of the points. I never had any delusions of winning money.

The next WPBT event is Razz, another game that seems to fall into the same category of getting lucky with the cards and taking advantage of the misguided. I suppose to some extent the same could be said for all forms of poker, though it seems that Hold'em allows for greater application of skill. Maybe that's just because I have a vague clue what I'm doing with Hold'em. With Razz and PLO8 I'm a fish in a very shallow, rapidly evaporating pond. Glub, glub.

Tonight is Mondays At The Hoy, PokerStars at 22:00 EDT. Password is hammer.