I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 270070

I had a real nice run in this poker tournament last year (actually it was in December 2008) and am hoping to run good (or better!) this year too. Last time I won one of the 6 prelims which awarded me $1,186 in prizes. The official PokerStars blog wrote this about my win:

Event #2 took more than five hours to play out and saw tons of familiar names from the blogging community. Notable poker bloggers Easycure, Rakewell1, NumbBono, gadzooks64, and Loretta8 all made it to the top 72 and earned their seats in the Main Event. Top honors, however, went to the United States’ malice51 who not only made it to the final, but also picked up three $215 tournament tickets, one $530 tournament ticket and a $11 tournament ticket (aka, Sunday Majors Platinum Package).

The really fun part was that I took one of those Sunday Million tickets and turned it into a 166th place finish (out of 16,260 people) that was worth $3,577.20 in cash money. Despite that nice score, however, I was bitter about how I got knocked out for some time. Top prize was $333,000 and while it is doubtful I could have gone that far I sure was planning on doing better than 166th. Read my tourney recap to see the most brutal beat I have ever taken, given the circumstances.

No bad beats for me this year. Please!

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It’s hard to imagine anything dumber than Minnesota ordering ISPs to blacklist gambling sites. Check out the fax the state sent to as variety of ISPs. Reading this over brings up a number of questions:

1) Did they include all ISPs?
2) Did they include all gambling sites?

They sent the notice to what appears to be the 12 biggest ISPs but I certainly didn’t take the time to research what they have missed.

The second question is very easy to answer at first glance – they missed a lot of very popular gambling sites! They put Full Tilt Poker on the list but not Party Poker, Ultimate Bet or PokerStars. Those are 3 of the world’s biggest online poker sites! Now that’s dumb.

How about some of the other things they say in the order. From the article linked to above:

The Department of Public Safety’s letters to the Internet providers say that “gambling is illegal within Minnesota” and claim that a federal law “requires upon notice by a law enforcement agency that you do not allow your systems to be used for the transmission of gambling information.”

How exactly is “gambling information” defined? Should I not be allowed to read the Wikipedia entry on the history of poker? Dumb.

What does the state gain here? Anything or are they just trying to protect people from themselves? Maybe I could understand it if we had public casinos bring in tax income – then it would be all about capitalism. But as far as I know our Indian casinos don’t pay any tax to the state.

So I conclude this is simply a weak attempt at being Big Brother. Good luck with all that – no way this sticks.

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The good news is that I took one of the tickets I won in the Blogger Tourney to today’s Sunday Million where I finished in 166th place out of 16,260 players. A score good for $3,577.20 – my second biggest win ever.

The bad news is that this is how I got knocked out:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $200+$15 Tournament, 25000/50000 Blinds 5000 Ante (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t464502)
SB (t1794281)
BB (t4349913)
UTG (t663598)
UTG+1 (t1132309)
MP1 (t1533527)
MP2 (t1711953)
malice51 (CO) (t793038)

malice51′s M: 6.90

Preflop: malice51 is CO with 3, A
4 folds, malice51 raises to t133333, 2 folds, BB calls t83333

Flop: (t331666) 7, 2, 5 (2 players)
BB bets t150000, malice51 raises to t654705 (All-In), BB calls t504705

Turn: (t1641076) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t1641076) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t1641076

Results:
BB had Q, J (one pair, Jacks).
malice51 had 3, A (high card, Ace).
Outcome: BB won t1641076

That’s just so brutal. Maybe you could argue I shouldn’t have been going against the big stack, but you can’t play frightened. For him to call over 500,000 with nothing but Q high? What does he put me on? Ouch. I’m so sick over it I can’t tell you. First place in this tourney pays $330,000. That would have been nice!

Well I still have a $530 ticket left so hopefully I’ll be able to turn that into something later.

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So the Blogger Poker Tournament that I mentioned previously actually was made up of 7 events – 6 prelims with the top 72 people all advancing to the finals this Sunday.

Tonight was the second preliminary, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t just win the thing. And by winning I don’t mean finishing in the top 72 to get the seat, I mean finishing #1 to get the bonus package, which for first place added up to $1,186 worth of prizes. Pretty sweet!

Everyone at the final table was guaranteed at least $430 worth of prizes, which is exactly what 2-9 got as the payouts were not stepped as they usually are. The poor guy in 10th got $82, so as usual most of the money to be made was made at the final table.

Remember, this didn’t cost anything to enter other than to have a blog. Pretty sweet of Pokerstars. And I can play in the other prelims if I want, keeping whatever prizes I can take home beyond the final tourney ticket which I already now have.

I haven’t been playing much poker at all and it has been awhile since I’ve taken down a tournament with this many people – 559. Great feeling, that’s for sure.

For those of you interested in such things, here is the final hand. I think I played it pretty well – I ordered up that turn 4 like nobody’s business . Prior to the hand I had 76BB and my Baba_Jin had 40BB so we were still pretty deep stacked:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 6000/12000 Blinds 1500 Ante (2 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

malice51 (SB) (t919561)
Button (t477939)

malice51′s M: 43.79

Preflop: malice51 is SB with 6, 3
Button calls t6000, malice51 checks

Flop: (t27000) A, 5, 7 (2 players)
malice51 checks, Button bets t24000, malice51 calls t24000

Turn: (t75000) 4 (2 players)
malice51 checks, Button bets t72000, malice51 raises to t144000, Button raises to t440439 (All-In), malice51 calls t296439

River: (t955878) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t955878

Results:
Button had A, Q (two pair, Aces and Queens).
malice51 had 6, 3 (straight, seven high).
Outcome: malice51 won t955878

I was only at risk for all of my chips once the entire tournament, early on when I had 7k chips and ran my QQ into KK but rivered a Q to double up and stay alive. Well actually even then I technically wasn’t but it would have dropped my to only 400 chips so that would have been the end.

I really abused the bubbles, and felt as though I had a pretty good handle on my tables. I was at the top of the leaderboard for much of the tournament, at one point having about 3x what 2nd had. I was playing well and of course did get lucky a few times.

Really happy with my play – looking forward to the rest of the series.

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I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

All bloggers can play in this exclusive online poker tournament.

Registration code: 901558

I’ve played in one of these before but didn’t cash. Pokerstars is offering a very nice selection of prizes given that this is a free tournament. Last year they had about 1,400 playing, I would expect a bit more this year. First prize is a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure prize package – worth $14,300! Second place is a European Poker Tour prize package + SCOOP Main Event ticket + Step 6 ticket – worth $11,100. Even 7th place still pays out for over a grand, with a $1,050 tournament ticket entry. Prizes ramp down to places 46th – 100th, which pay out a Step 3 ticket valued at $82.

And it’s free to play! Can’t beat that.

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For the second year in a row I arrived in Las vegas expecting to play in a WSOP event but failed to do so.  Last year I didn’t play in my planned event because the place was such a zoo, but Harrah’s made a lot of improvements this year so that wasn’t at all the problem.  The problem was that I played a $330 megastack event at Caesar’s on Friday and played so poorly (getting it all in with top pair-top kicker with 100BB) that I decided I would be just throwing my money away at the WSOP and I didn’t want to do that.  So instead I played another $330 on Saturday and played the best I could play.  End result?  Made it to day two of the event (meaning I both cashed and bagged chips for the first time in a major tournament) and ended up busting out 22nd out of 560 or so for a $809 win.  First place was $47k and I think the minimum at the final table was $3k so I was dissapointed, but I played the best I could so I am happy with that turn-around.

Some interesting hands over the few days I was there:

Late in the $330, we are in the money with a couple of hours to play to get to the end of day one and I have about 12BB when the average was about 20.  I am on the button with AJ, folds around to a woman in the cutoff who makes a standard 3BB raise.  I read it as a blind steal from late position and so I push.  A young aggressive kid with a big stack in the Big Blind then goes in the tank and ends up pushing all-in and then even worse for me the initial raiser called.  So I’m thinking I’m going to be in real bad shape but it turns out the kid had QQ and the woman had KK so I was actually not as bad as I thought, about a 28% favorite to win.  Had there been an AA or AK out there I would have only been about 10-12%, so I was very happy to see QQ and KK and no diamonds.  Although not as happy as I was when I saw an A on the flop and then another on the turn!  This was the only time I sucked out all tournament.  14 hours of play on Saturday and 1 hour on Sunday and I never saw AA in my own hand once.

Down to 22 people in the $330 and I’m sitting on about T120,000 with blinds T8,000/T16,000 with a T2,000 ante.  So less than 8 BBs and with the huge antes an M of only 3, which is square in the red zone.  I played three orbits on day two, the first time on my button I mucked T5 when it was folded around to me (blinds were 6/12 then and I had more chips) I pushed all in on a steal with an OK hand like K5 the second time around and this was third time.  Had 35.  The blinds had stacks of about T500,000, big but not so big that I thought they would make a super loose call. So I pushed and got called by AT.  Again, not as bad as you would think, I’m still about 38% to win and other than seeing A2 it was about as good as I could have expected to be.  A 3 was on the flop but so was a Ten and I couldn’t catch up – busting in 22nd.  Felt kind of stupid busting out with 35 but I think it was the right play given the blind levels and my chip stack. 

$2/$5 no-limit at the Rio.  I sit down and buy-in for the max, $500.  On my third hand I pick up KK in late position.  After a couple of limpers I raise to $30.  Kid with a big stack on the button re-raises to $90.  I re-re-raise to $270.  Oh oh, he instapushes for the fourth raise.  That pretty much always means Aces but with over half my stack in and no read on the guy I have to call and sure enough he shows AA and I’m felted within 5 minutes.  The good news is I buy back in for another $500 and by the end of the night I am up to $1,200 so I ended up making a couple hundo.

Same $2/$5 no-limit game.  This one I wasn’t in but it was the biggest suck-out I saw.  Can’t remember the action but the same kid who cracked my kings gets it all in after the flop with a bottom set of twos but he’s up against top set of Jacks.  River comes the case duece for the 1-outer huge pot.

My last poker of the trip was the $340 nightly at the Rio Sunday night.  We start with T5,000 with blinds T25/T50 with 30 minute levels.  Not as good structure as Caesar’s but not terrible.  Should be fun.  I start UTG and fold.  I get raised off my BB and SB.  On my fourth hand of the tournament I get 89 on the button and call an early position raise to see a flop of TJQ.  Not a play I would normally make but I wanted to see some flops with drawing hands to get some early chips.  Original raiser leads out with a T300 bet, I raise to T1,500 with my flopped straight and he pushes all-in.  He could easily have a flush draw here, or a set, or two pair, and I’m happy to gamble with any of those scenarios so I call.  Of course he shows AK for the flopped broadway straight and I bust out with the idiot end.  I don’t mind my play here though.

I ended up losing a little bit overall, but nonetheless a good trip.  I am thinking seriouslly about coming next year for a few more days and playing solely in the Megastack at Caesar’s.  Also, I stayed at Imperial Palace this time because I forgot to make a reservation until the last minute and I have to say I was pretty happy with the IP – in particular it’s close proximity to Caesar’s.

Looking forward to ’09!

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The 2008 World Series of Poker kicked off yesterday with Event #1, $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em. It’s a 3 day event and Eli Elezra has the chip lead after day one. Check out Tao of Poker to get a great perspective on the Series.

I was in Vegas last year planning to play an event but the chaos around the first $1,500 No Limit event of the year was just crazy so I skipped it and played in the Deep Stacks tournies at the Venetian. Like what usually happens to me I didn’t cash in the tournies themselves but I was profitable from the satellites and cash games.

This year I’m planning to play in Event #39, $1,500 No Limit Hold’em on Saturday, June 21st. I’ll be there from Friday to Monday and plan to play in the Deep Stacks tournies and satellites at Venetian and/or Caesar’s as well, unless of course I go deep in the WSOP.

Following are links to my previous WSOP forays:

2004
Playing with the big boys
Las Vegas Trip Report – Day One
Las Vegas Trip Report – Day Two
Las Vegas Trip Report – Day Three

2005
WSOP Bound
2005 WSOP Trip Report

2006
Third Time Not a Charm

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Having spent about 10 days in Prague, Czech Republic, I offer the following observations:

The business part of the trip I spent at the Prague Hilton, a very fine hotel and of course quite Americanized. The family vacation part of the trip I spent in a small apartment at the foot of Vysehrad Castle. When I went to bed at the Hilton I heard the sound of the HVAC(Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system. When I went to bed at the apartment I had my windows open and heard the sound of people walking across cobblestone. In the former I could have been anywhere in the world. In the latter, I knew I was in Prague.

A day trip to Terezin, a former concentration camp, is a sobering affair but well worth the tri Being a “model” camp, I can only imagine what a visit to a death camp like Auschwitz-Birkenau or Treblinka must be.

I still can’t get over the fact you can get a beer at the movie theatres in Europe. The assigned seating made everything very efficient, although it was easy because the show was sparsely attended.

Smoking is everywhere. I played a little poker in the Hilton Casino and the way they dealt with the smoking issue there was to make half the table non-smoking. Fortunately smoke doesn’t bother me.

This is the last hand I played in Prague. I was on the button in an 8-handed 200/400 limit holdem game (that’s like 10/20 US). All fold to the Swede one off the cutoff and he raises the 200 blind to 400. He’s been very aggressive preflop but has shown little aggression postflop beyond a continuation bet. I am confident I can outplay him postflop.  I have a very tight image as I have only been showing down premium hands. I three bet with 89. The small blind, a new player to the game who is drunk and only recently joined the game calls the additional 500 and the BB joins in as well. Flop comes 673. Drunk and BB check, Swede bets, I raise. I’m really liking my hand here as I flopped absolute perfect for my hand, with a well disguised OESD(Open End Straight Draw) given my image and action in the hand. The Drunk calls, BB folds, the Swede three bets and I cap it. The drunk calls two more bets and the Swede calls. Turn is the gorgeous 5 giving me the nut straight. This time the Drunk leads out with a bet. The Swede calls, I raise and both of them call. The river is the K, putting 3 diamonds now on the board. The Drunk leads out, the Swede makes a crying call saying “show me your straight or flush” and while I normally don’t put people on runner/runner I just call. The Swede had KK (and was very surprised to see my hand), and of course the Drunk had 24, with the winning flush. 8400 pot down the drain. That was enough poker in Prague.

Graffiti is a real problem in Prague. We saw very few children in the tourist areas. Pilsner Urquell tastes better in Prague. The Tram system works very well. Cobblestones are brutal on the feet.

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Back in Amsterdam again and I have found a little time to play poker between the long days in the office. Reading the Amsterdam travel guide gave me a lot of great ideas for sightseeing but for last night anyway, it was just poker for me. I played in the 60EUR+rebuys No-Limit holdem tourney at Holland Casino. The tourney is capped at 7 tables of 10 for a total of 70 runners. You start with 500 in chips and there is unlimited 50EUR rebuys during the first hour. Blinds are 10-20 and 20-40 during the first hour.

I was at a crazy table – I played two hands during the first hour and went from 500 chips to 4000. I took the tourney chip lead when we were down to three tables and blinds at 100-200, I had about 3000 chips total so I was at 15BB. I was on the button with 33. UTG is a tight, unimaginative woman who has been showing she will fold to raises. She min-raises to 400. It folds around to me and I push with my 33. Small blind gets all excited and pushes in as well and he has me covered. I’m thinking I’m in trouble. BB folds and SB calls off all her chips as well.

Before the flop I liked what I saw – UTG showed AT and SB showed AT! I don’t understand either the push from the small blind or the call by UTG, but such is poker – the table indicated they didn’t understand my push (“you play so tight all night and then you push with that? Crazy American!”) but I think it was very good play. The flop comes KQ4 and suddenly I am not looking so good. Any A,T,J or Heart and I am toast. The turn comes the 3 giving me a set but I still lose to a Jack or a heart. River was a blank and I tripled up to 9000 and the tourney chip lead.

I still had the chip lead when we got down to two tables but a series of bad beats put me in position to lose on the bubble (they play down to a final table of 9 that pays). I managed to sneak into the final table with the blinds at 500-1000 and me with 2300 chips. I was dealt 9T in early position and with the blinds coming up I went in hoping I would get a whole bunch of callers. Only the blinds called my tiny raise and I went busto when they checked it down.

Payout for 9th for 202EUR. As I was walking out of the casino I saw a roulette table that had had 6 reds in a row. I put 200 on black and won, doubling up.

Now that’s gambling.

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At 5:00 on Friday I wrapped up a tough, long week at work. Having already been looking at the calendar for the WSOP and our own summer vacation schedule I knew the only event I would be able to play in this year was Event #6, the $2000 NLHE event on Saturday. I guess the 9 days in Italy we just spent loosened Amy up a bit because she gave me the OK to hop on a plane that night and get over here in time for today’s event. I got a reasonable last minute fare on America West, got a cheap room at Harrah’s last night and I’m using points at a Hilton property tonight so other than the event itself this wasn’t too expensive despite the last minute nature of it.

The last two years I have warmed up before my event playing craps next to T.J. Cloutier. I made a decision this year to not play craps, especially not right before the start. Instead I used the time to try gain some focus.

I managed to last about 5 hours, into the 100/200+25 round, and throughout that entire time my stack didn’t vary outside of the 1300-3100 range. I took a hit early in the 25/25 round when I had Q7 in the BB. 1 limper and the small blind completed. Flop came KQ3. Checked around. Turn was the Q, giving me 3 queens. SB checked, I bet and he called. River came a blank but then he bet into me. I was pretty sure I was beat to another Q with a better kicker but the bet size was one that I had to call. Turned out he had pocket threes for the full-house. That was about my low point until I got knocked out.

I rarely got suited connectors, I had KK once and I don’t remember any other pocket pairs but 7s and 4s, the latter being how I went out. In late position with about 14BBs I put in a 4BB raise and the BB pushed. I was confident I was looking at a coin flip and even though I could have folded and still had about 10BBs I decided now was the time to get a stack so I called. He had AK, a K came on the flop and I was done.

Never had a name pro at my table, although I did have them all around me on adjacent tables – Evelyn Ng, Todd Brunson, Jennifer Harman, John Hennigan, John D’Agistono and Cyndy Violette are the ones I remember. In a salute to Pauly I’ll point out I took a piss next to Howard Lederer.

This year the WSOP is fully commercialized with many sponsors, high end suites sponsored by the various poker rooms, and a general feel of luxury that hasn’t been there before. The crazy thing is that despite all of this there is no money added to the prize pool and even worse they continue to take 9-10% out of the prize pool. So the players are all playing for their own money, or some portion of it anyway. I suppose most of the pros get their entries subsidized by the sites they shill for, but even still it must be pretty irritating. I’ve heard pro golfers bring up the fact that they have to pay their own travel expenses, but hell poker players have to do that and they have to provide their own prize pool too.

So third time not a charm – better luck next year.

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Wrapped up work in Barcelona at about 7:00PM on Wednesday and then headed over to the Casino de Barcelona for another taste of European poker.

The World Heads-Up Poker Champinoships have been running this week, I was able to watch some of round 4 which included 2001 WSOP(World Series of Poker) Champion Carlos Mortenson and Paul Jackson, perhaps most noted for finishing 2nd to Phil Ivey in the 2005 Monte Carlo Millions. If you haven’t seen this hand from their battle do take the time to check it out, it’s unbelievable poker at its best.

I won 350 Euros playing 20/40 limit, which is well beyond my comfort zone and won another 300 Euros playing 5/10 No-Limit, which is also a bigger game then I am used to. The casino usually only spreads Pot Limit Holdem and Omaha and Limit Holdem, but apparently this week they have been spreading some additional games due to all the extra traffic. The biggest game I saw was a 100/200 limit game that a couple of the guys playing at our no-limit table moved to later in the evening.

I won’t pretend to have played very well as I generally played a little too scared and then when I did get some chips I played much too loose and passive – limping into pots and then check calling. Ick. I knew what I was doing but had a hard time stopping it, I think that is because I was playing at too high a limit and I’ll have to remember that in the future.

I played two key hands where I won the majority of my money. In the first hand I had JT in late position and raised to 40 Euro when it folded to me. The button, who had been very loose but aggressive post-flop just called and it was heads-u Flop came JT4. With 95 Euros in the pot I made a 100 Euro bet. Button, a big Russian who later played inthe 100/200 limit game raised it up to 300 Euro. I didn’t play scared in this hand and I pushed all-in for around 900 Euros. He insta-called and I was very worried he had flopped a set. As is tradition in Europe we did not flip our cards over and two rags hit the board, I flipped my cards and after thinking for just a minute he mucked his cards and I raked in a nice double-up.

I was talking about the hand with a Brit next to me when the Russian made the comment he was ahead on the flo Since my hand didn’t improve and I won the pot it didn’t immediatly register what he was telling me, until he said he had mucked Q9. If in fact that is what he had, and I have no reason to doubt him, he was indeed a 53% favorite after the flo Open-ended straight flush draws are very powerful.

After I lost most of these winnings I won a lot of it back by benefiting from a runner/runner that disguised my hand very well. I had J8 with 2 spades on the flop, called a small flop raise and caught an 8 on the turn and again called a bet with 3 players in thinking I would be good on any 8, J or spade. Turned out I was right except for the J, but fortunetly another 8 came on the river and one player called a nice sized bet I made.

After I whittled down most of my winnings by continuing to play scared I called it a night with a small profit and a good learning experience.

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I got into Amsterdam early on Saturday and settled into my hotel room by about 9:00AM. Use a travel guide for finding a cheap hotel in Amsterdam. The last thing you want to do in this situation is to fall asleep, which will screw up your sleep schedule and pretty much doom you to a week of jet lag. So my plan was to wander around the city until 9:00PM or so and then get to bed at a normal time for this time zone.

Alas, the plan was thwarted when I ran into the Holland Casino, which was not even listed in my travel guide. I asked the person at the front desk whether they had poker and he confirmed they did – starting at 8:00PM. So after dinner and a little more walking around I got to the casino about 7:00, paid my €3.50 (as if they don’t make enough money they have to charge an entrance fee?) and played a few games I had no earthly business playing like Baccarat, which cost me €80.

The poker games started getting setup shortly after 8. They were spreading a 10/20 limit game with a €200 buy-in and a no-limit game with a min buy-in of €250 and a max buy-in of €500. Blinds were 5/5. Since I loath limit I signed up for the no-limit and within 20 minutes or so I had bought in for €250 and we had a 10-handed game going.

My plan going in was to play very tight until I could get a better handle on how people were going to be playing and whether I could tell who the sucker was. Because if you can’t find the sucker odds are it’s you! Fortunetly it didn’t take long to determine that the sucker was the Indian guy with the huge wad of cash in his pocket, which everyone pretty much set their sights on from the beginning. He proceeded to fold at least 3 times in the first 5 hands when he could have checked for free – a sure sign the guy doesn’t know what he is doing. I’ll call him George.

Key Hand #1

I was playing tight so I hadn’t played a hand in the first orbit when I found KK UTG(Under The Gun). I mistakenly raised to €40 instead of the €20 I meant to because most of the chips we were using were €10 chips and both blinds had posted with €10 chips (they would get change back). But despite this I got two callers, George and the guy I’ll call the Guy on George’s Left.

The flop came KQ5. So the good news was I flopped top set. The bad news was there were a couple of draws out there and while unlikely even a possible made flush. With €130 in the pot and €210 in my stack I decided it was time to fish or cut bait and I pushed all-in. Both George and the Guy on George’s Left called. Uh oh. I don’t know if this is a European thing or not but nobody showed their cards even though both George and I were all-in. When the turn came the 7 I knew I was behind and I yelled out “pair the board!” and someone listened because the beautiful Q hit giving me the full house. The Guy on George’s left showed AJ so he called with a straight draw and the nut flush draw that hit and George showed A4 so he had called with nothing. This would be a trend for him. You’ve never seen 9 people so happy when he reached into his pocket and rebought for €500.

Key Hand #2

So I had tripled up and loosened up my play a little, staying pretty much around the €700 mark when the next key hand came along. After 6 limpers I limped from the button with AT. Flop came K84. After a couple of checks George led out with a bet of €40 which I had already determined didn’t mean anything. I smooth called from the button and it was heads-u A card that wasn’t a club came on the turn and George bet another €40. I knew I couldn’t get him off any hand so I just called again and when the river came a club I had the nuts. George bet €40 again and I raised him to €100 and George called immediatly. I showed my nuts and George showed ten high. Yes you read that right, ten high. He called my raise with ten high. This pleased the table to no end because if anyone had any thoughts George was acting this pretty much sealed the deal that he was just a rich clueless guy looking to have some fun.

Key Hand #3

My stack was back down to €800 after I had to lay-down a couple of decent hands that I had re-raised with when the other guy re-re-raised all-in. I hate that and it would be a trend that would cost me later. In this hand I had K8 in late position and loosely called a small raise from the Guy on George’s Left. Flop came K48 giving me two pair. It checked around to the Guy on George’s Left who bet €20 into a pot which must have had around €60 in it, so it was a small bet. I decided to smooth call and see what happened. It was heads-up between us when the turn came the K giving me the stone cold mortal nuts (well technically he could have also had K8 for a chop). Again he just bet €20. Now this was just rediculous and I had no idea what it meant but I knew I liked him in the lead so I just called again. The river came the third club and this time the Guy on George’s Left bet €80. I raised him to €200 and he re-raised me another €300. I pushed and he didn’t look too happy but he called anyway since it was just a little bit more. He showed J5 for a Jack-high flush, which really surprised me as he had played it like he had the Ace-high flush. In any case I had doubled up to €1600 with my fullhouse and the Guy on George’s Left was crippled and quit.

As often happens when I get a big stack I loosened up way too much and tried to take away pots from people by re-raising. This worked a couple of times but a couple of other times it really hurt as I was re-re-raised and just couldn’t call. I really need to learn that I don’t always need to be the table captain.

So I drew my chip line in the sand at €1000 and at 2:00AM I limped my last nickle and when nothing hit the flop I folded and cashed out for a nice €750 profit, which while not as big as it could have been was still a nice take for a short night’s work.

So after a long time of no sleep I finally crashed at about 3:00AM and woke up around 11:00AM Sunday – and as I write this Sunday night I feel pretty good with no jet lag, and some spending money in my pocket. I may head back Wednesday night before I leave on Thursday but we’ll see. Day trip to Brussels tomorrow.

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I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 8828202

Decided to move “all my poker posts”:http://www.johnsjottings.com/archives/categories/poker/ into their own category.

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Well I’m back from a few days in Vegas and sorry to say I won’t be on ESPN yet again this year, although I did make one of the Cardplayer.com videos I had mentioned previously. I make my appearance in this video at about the 44 second mark. That’s me in the black shirt and black hat. Yeah, I know that’s pretty lame but what the heck better than nothing!

In event #22 the $1,500 NLHE I was seated with 9 strangers, closest I got to playing with a pro was seeing Mike Sexton at the table next to me. First hand of the tourney a young guy gets into it with an older guy who goes all-in after the turn with a Q on board. Young guy calls with AQ for TPTK and doubles up on the first hand. Old guy was on a total bluff steal with A-rag, no doubt assuming the young guy didn’t want to go out on the first hand and would fold anything but a monster. No such luck.

I made one good lay down early with TPTK that had my stack down to about T800 when the following hand came up:

EP player with a PokerSchool hat raises to T75 (still in 1st level blinds were T25-T25), all fold to me in the small blind and I decide to see a flop for an extra T50 with T6. BB mucks. Flop comes TT5. I check my trips, and with only T175 in the pot EP puts out a T500 bet. Of course I hated my kicker but I was 99.999% confident he doesn’t make that play with a Ten in his hand so I am sure I have the winner and since I only had a couple hundred more I pushed all in and he called. Since he had AA he was not too happy with my play or the result which was that he didn’t hit his Ace on the turn or the flop and I was back up over starting chips. I hate the 3xBB raise in the 1st level, very unlikely to get some crap hands out. And I have no idea what he was thinking with the huge overbet. He busted out a short time later.

Unfortunately my end came soon after in the middle of the 2nd level. Terrible play on my part for a number of reasons. I’m in the SB with A7. All fold to me. I have a pretty aggressive kid on my left in the BB. Mistake #1 – I just call. He makes a small raise and again I call. Flop comes A45. I check, he bets, I check-raise and he calls. Frankly other than not raising pre-flop I don’t mind my play here. But when he calls my good sized check raise that should give me all the info I need. He either has an A with a better kicker, two pair or a set. Why I did not see that at the time I do not know, but after a blank came on the river I (mistake #3, although in this case it wouldn’t have mattered) checked, he made a big bet that would put me all-in and I (mistake #4) called. He showed 44 for the flopped set and I bust out before the first break. Terrible poker on my part.

One of the many leaks in my game is I think too often that someone is trying to bully me off a pot and I stand up to them. That’s what happened here and it killed me. I need to plug that leak and soon if I’m going to be playing at this level. His call of my check-raise on the flop should have given me all the info I needed to get the heck away from the hand, where I would still have had a decent stack, though well below average. NLHE is all about preserving chips and not making that one stupid mistake and I did neither. Argh.

I played in a few satellites, winning one. I felt really bad about that win though. When we were three handed the short stack, who had about 10% of the chips, suggested a 3-way chop (this was a $175 so payout was 3 $500 tourney chips and $120 in cash). Of course I said I wasn’t interested. After she busted out a few hands later she expressed her anger to me for not taking the deal but it was a terrible deal and why she thought anyone would go for it I do not know.

Starting heads-up I had a slight lead on the kid and was pretty confident I would beat him but I did offer a $120 save. At first he didn’t want to take that because he didn’t have any cash but once informed that was part of the prize pool he agreed to it. After we played for awhile I offered a 2-1 chop on the tourney chips but he didn’t want to chop because he needed to win the satellite to enter the $1,500 NLHE tourney that was to start in a couple of hours. So I said “I’m already registered so clearly all the pressure is on you” and we continued play with no deal but the save.

I played much tighter than I usually would heads-up and twice he had me outchipped about 90%-10% and both times when all-in I made a straight or a flush with weaker starting cards. A couple of times I folded my SB when I only had 3xBB total in chips, but I was being very careful and cautious and in the end it paid off when I managed to come back and win, finally taking all his money when I for one at the best hand preflop and it held u I really felt kind of bad for the guy (but not so bad). To add insult to injury for him after I took $60 from the cash payout and gave to the dealer as a tip I started to walk away and he had to beg for his save money. Whoops.

Just like last year I played a little craps prior to the start of the tournament and just like then I had TJ Cloutier to my left. I said hello, congratulated him on this bracelet win and we then proceeded to focus on the craps. He told me he was already stuck for $20,000 and in the 5 minutes or so we played together he dropped another $5,000 or so. TJ is all gamble.

All in all a good trip despite my poor showing in the tourney, and I’m hoping to be back again next year.

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I’ve been keeping up with some of the WSOP events via cardplayer.com who have been doing a nice job with frequent updates and videos. Tonight I read about the wildest call I’ve ever heard of at a poker table.

Put yourself in Kirill Gerasimov’s shoes. You are heads-up at the first table of the $1,500 No-Limit Shootout WSOP event. You and your opponent have about the same amount of chips although you have him covered slightly. You are in the big blind and your opponent raises preflop. You call with T6. Pretty standard play. Flop comes AK-blank. Check, check. Blank comes on the turn. You check and your opponent bets 700. You call. Jack comes on the river. You miss your flush draw. You have ten high. Absolutely nothing. You check, and when you think you hear your opponent check you show your ten high.

But then your opponent surprises you by saying he didn’t check and after calling the floorman he is given the chance to bet and he takes it to go all-in. So you have ten high and you are pretty much going to lose if your opponent has anything. Clearly he is bluffing since he knows you can’t call but he could be bluffing with 22 or 33 or even queen high.

Could you make that call? Kirill did and won when his opponent showed the biggest ever called down bluff with the hammer, 72.

Wild. Hear it directly from Kirill.

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Hello John,

You have been registered in to the following WSOP event:

Tournament
7403113 June 22-Event #22– $1,500 NL Hold’em

using W$1,500 from your account.

You will be next receiving an email from wsop@pokerstars.com with further
instructions.

Good luck at the tournament!

Regards,
Leonard

PokerStars Support Team

I won three $3+R tournaments with each paying out an entry into the weekly $615 but unregistered for each and took the payout in W$. Booked my flight, got comped a room at the Harrah’s (they wouldn’t comp me at the Rio, no surprise there) and I’m set to go.

I played in one of the $1,500 NLHE events last year (trip report) and would certainly like to improve on my finish which was about 350th out of 831.

The last few months at work have been hell, with this week being the worst. This will be a nice quick break regardless of how I finish. Wish me luck.

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I played in the $200+25 No-Limit tournament at “Canterbury”:http://www.canterburypark.com/cardclub/pokerroom.htm Wednesday night. I haven’t played in a tournament for awhile and had an itch I needed to scratch. The last couple of tournaments I played in I feel like I played too conservatively, playing most of the tournament short-stacked and needing to play an all-in or fold game.

This time, I told myself, I was going to make some early gambles and look to build a nice chip-stack going into the middle rounds. The good news is that is exactly what I did. The bad is that I lost most of it in a flaming disaster of two hands in the 5th round.

The tournament started out pretty interesting. Sitting to my left as the tournament started was “Dennis Wager”:http://www.headsuppokerchamp.net/bios/wager.html an amateur who we’ll be seeing beating Eric Seidel in the first round of the “2005 National Heads-Up Poker Championship”:http://www.headsuppokerchamp.net/index.html on NBC later this spring. Dennis is a whale in Las Vegas who lives in Minnesota and was one of only a couple of non-professionals in that tournament. Dennis plays the 30-60 game at Canterbury.

I played pretty tight the first orbit when I limped with A7 and saw a flop of JT5. The woman to my right bet out a half-pot sized bet, which was the first bet I had seen her make. I just called, and I think there may have been one other caller. The turn came a 3 and the woman again made a medium sized bet. I decided that it was time to gamble with the nut flush draw and actually thought I could get her to lay down when I bet out a big bet of about half my stack. Damned if she didn’t go all in! Now I knew I was beat but I had 9 outs to take all her money so I pushed it all-in as well. I was rewarded when the beautiful diamond hit the river, and while the table chatter was that I made a terrible call I don’t think I did because my strategy going in was not to be short-stacked and if I had folded to her all-in I would have been crippled. I knew I had a good shot to win and I took it. She had top two.

By the second round I felt like I had a pretty good read on Dennis (we had been chatting quite a bit). I was one off the button with AJ with a couple of middle position limpers when I made a big raise in a semi-steal attempt. Dennis on the button just called and everyone else mucked. The flop came AKQ. I was pretty sure Dennis thought he could out-play me heads-up with any two cards (and his reputation in the 30-60 is just that, any two) so I figured my best chance was to just push with top pair, a gutshot straight draw and a runner-runner nut flush draw. Dennis called with KQ and I doubled him up when I didn’t improve. So now I was about back to where I started!

I don’t remember the hand at all but I doubled up again by knocking out the player to my right who had taken the seat from the woman I had knocked out previously, and I knocked another guy out with presto (55) going up against two nines when I flopped a set. Boy was he steamed.

Finally right toward the end of the 3rd round and before the break I woke up with pocket rockets (AA) and found myself heads-up with Dennis again. I had made a healthy pre-flop raise that he once again called. The A came on the flop of an otherwise unscary board and I decided to lead out with a big bet, despite having the monster top set. Dennis just called. Another non-scary card came on the turn and I pushed in everything I had, including the racked greens I had just bought from everyone. Dennis thought a real long time before mucking and I was a nice guy and showed my cards. I was planning on stealing pots later with my big stack and wanted them to know I would make that play with good cards too. In hindsight I probably could have taken all of his chips if I had checked the turn.

Coming back from the break Dennis told me it looked like I was chip leader with about T15,000 (started with T4,000). I started using that muscle and moved my stack up to about T20,000 when our table broke and the disaster was about to begin.

I doubled-up one guy when my KK fell to his AA. Then I found myself in the single most stupidest hand I have ever been in. I limped from small-blind with K4 (not a hand I normally would play) and decided pre-flop that I was going to bet out no matter what flopped. I wish I could remember exactly what was on the board or how the betting went but I can’t, but there were just rags on the board and I made a modest bet hoping to take it right down. I got one caller, a player I had already been able to peg as really bad and a chaser. I think there was a couple of spades on board. After the turn, another low card, I made another good sized bet and he called again. I convinced myself he was chasing. A Q fell on the river to give a board that looked something like 3599Q. I had absolutely nothing with K4 but felt really sure he also had nothing either. I had no business being in this pot at any time but here I was making a big bet at the end which in hindsight wasn’t big enough since he called it. Rather than look at how much was in the pot I focused on how much he had in front of him and I bluffed at him for 3/4s of his chips, which probably was only 1/4 of the pot or so. So when he called my bluff I knew I couldn’t beat anything and mucked without showing. The smug bastard then flipped up K4 to show his bluff! The bluff he just called with! WTF? I was stunned, both for how poor his call was but also for me being so stupid as to lose half my chips when it should have been a chopped pot. I’m still stunned.

So I was steaming the next hand when I had 33 and went all-in and was rightly called by AJ – who flopped an A to cripple me down to less than original buy-in. Dennis came over shortly after and was as disappointed as I to see my short stack. Shortly after that I was out.

So I went into the tournament with a strategy that I executed to perfection and then I let it all slip away with a combination of my own poor play and just unfathomable bad play by someone else. Next time I play a tournament I have to remember to give myself the pep talk about all levels of the tournament, not just the beginning.

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Anyone who has only experienced poker on television really has no idea how boring the game can truly be. Heavily edited, most hands on TV actually have some level of action and interesting play. Normal poker can be plenty boring, but even so it can be interesting to watch real poker in action.

The Bicycle casino in California is now offering a show called “Live at the Bike”:http://www.thebike.com/live_at_the_bike/ which gives you a view into a real poker game, unedited in all it’s real-world glory. From the guy in seat 9 asking for some honeydew for his fruit plate to the guys on the rail dropping the effinheimers this is truly a glimpse into what a poker room really is all about.

The show has a couple of commentators, Denny and Shirley, whoever they are, and the hole cards are exposed so you do get to see hands just like on a normal TV broadcast. For those interested in sharing your own commentary head over to “2+2″:http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1794066&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=14 and look for that night’s official Live at the Bike thread. But if you do that I’ll call you a nerd for sure.

The show is live on Wednesdays through Saturdays from 6-10PM PST. I understand the game changes periodically – tonight it is $200/NL with 3/5 blinds, and it’s plenty tight – which means it’s even more boring than usual. But it is oddly compelling. They just announced that tomorrow’s game will be 400/800 blinds, that’s dollars not cents. Yowza.

You will need to register to view the show.

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Last night I played poker for the first time since my effort at the WSOP event at the beginning of May. I played in the $200+25 no-limit event at Canterbury and finished 16th out of 137 entries. Unfortunately only the top 9 were paid so it’s sort of like finishing 137th but with five hours of additional work.

The night started out pretty well as I got AA on the third hand of the tournament, led in with a 4x BB raise from mid position but saw it get folded around for a whopping take of T75. That sucks.

I feel I played pretty well but got crippled on one bad call that I have blocked out of my memory and then spent the rest of the night shorthanded. I ended up going all-in 14 times over the course of the tournament, one time chopping when a flush hit the board, one time the bad call I already mentioned that I lost, one time the hand that knocked me out and every other one a winner – including three times when I was behind pre-flop but caught up by the river. The best of these was my 66 getting called by KK and me flopping the set. That pot helped get me the bankroll needed to get to the final two tables.

As happy as I am with a decent finish it ended really stupidly. Really badly. Terrible. Blinds were T3,000/T6,000 and I had about T15,000. I had stolen the blinds the previous two rounds with AT and saw it folded around to me in the SB with Q8. The BB had a fairly small stack but easily had me covered. I had just looked at the other table and noticed four other small stacks about my size. I knew that even if I went all-in I was probably going to get called with any two cards. Yet I still pushed in, rather than give myself another half dozen hands to at least catch ace-rag. Her A5 held up and I got busted out close to the bubble.

That’s me, bubble boy. Still, not bad and I learned some things I can improve on for next time.

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Las Vegas Trip Report – Day One
Las Vegas Trip Report – Day Two

Saturday was my last full day in Vegas and I spent most of it at Bellagio playing craps and $2/4 no-limit ($200 max buy-in). I would have preferred playing a higher buy-in but the next highest up was a $10/20 with a $600 minimum buy-in which is a little deceiving, you would really want to buy-in for a couple grand in that game, and be willing to stomach $5,000+ pots which I am just not prepared to do.

There were two $2/4 tables running – one was the main table and the other the must-move feeder. I got up to about $700 on the feeder table and really didn’t want to move but after a couple of hours I got the call and moved to the main table where for a couple of hours I vacillated between $500 and $900, never able to bust out of that range. I finally quit after a bad play in which I called a $100 raise holding KJ with a board of T6K2A. I had my opponent on a flush draw and rightly figured his raise as trying to show an Ace. I felt it exactly right yet instead of raising I just called and he showed KQ to make a big dent in my stack that caused me to leave only a $200 winner. I hate when I know what my opponent has and make the wrong play.

One funny story from earlier in the day on the feeder table. There was a guy to my left who was new to poker and he didn’t know what chopping was. Twice I asked him if he wanted to chop and both times he said “let me look at my cards first.” So the third time I asked again and before he had a chance to look at his cards I raised him $30 blind. Of course he didn’t notice I had not looked at my cards. Just my luck he called. Board of low cards came and I bet another $60 blind again. He went into the tank and I’m thinking how stupid I am for playing blind for this much. He finally mucks and I flip my cards over for the first time to see AA! And not 5 minutes earlier I had complained of not seeing bullets yet on my trip (I got them twice more on the main table, once against the same guy when he also had bullets).

Made a losing bet on the Kentucky Derby but enjoyed watching it from the table with an absolutely packed sports book right next door.

Overall a very good trip – I actually finished ahead in poker which I had not realistically expected given my chances in the $1,500 no-limit tournament. Some bad craps luck made me a $500 loser but that’s pretty good for three days of entertainment if you ask me.

I’m going to try to be a good boy all year so I can go again in 2005.

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