If I'm being honest, I'd have to say I'm not a very flashy poker player. I'm not one to make a lot of hero calls. Come to think of it, I don't make a lot of hero folds, either. My poker motto would be KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
That's why the hand which I've selected for the hand of the week (perhaps an odd title for a feature I'm writing every two months) is so unique. Facing an inordinate amount of pressure, I made the hero call for a massive chunk of my stack. Was I correct? I'll let you know in my next blog post. Feel free to analyze the hand or critique my play in the comments section below.
THE SITUATION
I'm playing hand No. 103 of a $30+$3 multi-table tournament on PokerStars. I'm the chip leader at my table, and among the top 10 per cent of the field, with a stack of 25,143. Blinds are 300-600 with a 50-chip ante.
MY HOLDING
I've got Kh8s in the big blind.
PREFLOP ACTION
Action folds around to the button, who has the third-largest stack at the table with 15,692. He min-raises to 1,200 total. I elect to defend my big blind with a call.
THE FLOP
The flop comes down 6d 6s 8c. I check, my lone opponent fires a bet of 1,147. I flat-call.
THE TURN
The 9s comes off on the turn. I check, opponent bets 2,400. I flat-call once again.
THE RIVER
The 4s hits the river. I check a third time, and my opponent ships all-in for 10,895. I think about it for a while, and finally click the call button.
HOW WOULD YOU PLAY IT?
I made the hero call, but was I a goat? All that was at stake was 60 per cent of my stack, in a tournament where first place was just a few pennies short of $1,200. I'll keep you in suspense for now, and let you debate my play in the comments section.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
I'm done whining . . . for now
A couple days ago, I was doing some griping about how bad I was running. Well, I'm not sure if PokerStars reads my blog (unlikely), but the software, which had been utterly luck-screwing me, made a 180-degree turn in terms of how it was treating me.
Over my next six sit 'n go tournaments (four $30s and two $60s), I cashed four times, including three wins. To say I ran good would be an understatement. Certainly, I played well, adhering to my earlier position that I was making good decisions but just needed the cards to turn slightly in my favour. But I also found myself in some lovely spots. For instance, in one of the $60 SNGs, I had a medium-stacked opponent decide to shove from the small blind into my big blind. I had aces, he had QTo, and I held. Later in the same tournament, I made a raise, and found myself committed when a short stack shipped it behind me. He had AK, I had KhQh, but I flopped a queen and hung on for the knockout. I went on to amass a stack of over 10k before the money bubble burst, and I cruised to the win.
I finished second in the other $60 SNG, but I played well/ran well to get there. On the bubble, I was the short stack, with two medium stacks and one massive stack. First, I shoved a few hands in succession to get out of the danger zone. Then, I was mildly chagrined when one of the smaller stacks doubled up when his AK held against the big stack's QJ, all in preflop. But I was the recipient of some luck on the very next hand, when the other shorter stack got it all in with TT vs. the big stack's A3o. The shorty was safe through the flop and the turn, but the river was a lovely ace to get me into the money.
I was third in chips, but maybe three hands later, the medium stack ran KK into the chip leader's AA. I was at a 10-1 chip disadvantage when heads-up play began, and I busted in short order. But I basically had $150 gift-wrapped thanks to a bit of luck.
So, no more whining from me. I'm playing well and running well. Hopefully it continues.
Bankroll: $7,250
Over my next six sit 'n go tournaments (four $30s and two $60s), I cashed four times, including three wins. To say I ran good would be an understatement. Certainly, I played well, adhering to my earlier position that I was making good decisions but just needed the cards to turn slightly in my favour. But I also found myself in some lovely spots. For instance, in one of the $60 SNGs, I had a medium-stacked opponent decide to shove from the small blind into my big blind. I had aces, he had QTo, and I held. Later in the same tournament, I made a raise, and found myself committed when a short stack shipped it behind me. He had AK, I had KhQh, but I flopped a queen and hung on for the knockout. I went on to amass a stack of over 10k before the money bubble burst, and I cruised to the win.
I finished second in the other $60 SNG, but I played well/ran well to get there. On the bubble, I was the short stack, with two medium stacks and one massive stack. First, I shoved a few hands in succession to get out of the danger zone. Then, I was mildly chagrined when one of the smaller stacks doubled up when his AK held against the big stack's QJ, all in preflop. But I was the recipient of some luck on the very next hand, when the other shorter stack got it all in with TT vs. the big stack's A3o. The shorty was safe through the flop and the turn, but the river was a lovely ace to get me into the money.
I was third in chips, but maybe three hands later, the medium stack ran KK into the chip leader's AA. I was at a 10-1 chip disadvantage when heads-up play began, and I busted in short order. But I basically had $150 gift-wrapped thanks to a bit of luck.
So, no more whining from me. I'm playing well and running well. Hopefully it continues.
Bankroll: $7,250
Monday, August 1, 2011
Why am I on tilt if I'm winning?
I'll admit it. If I'd written this post a week ago, it would have been a bit more of a brag.
One month after returning to the online poker world, I'm up $500. But after the roller-coaster it's been, and the amount of money I probably should have made, I'm fairly discouraged.
In lieu of a chart, here's a sentence summary of my bankroll adventures. I was up $400, down $300, up $800, down $600, up $400, and finally down $200 to land at +$500 for the month.
I've had countless periods of re-evaluation during this stretch. I began the month playing a much more aggressive style than I was used to, and I made it work for me. But playing that high-variance style, combined with playing too many tournaments, caused a nosedive. I decided I needed to get back to using the game plan detailed in Collin Moshman's book, Sit 'n Go Strategy, which is essentially solid early, aggressive late. I also decided I needed to play no more than three tourneys per day, so that I valued each buy-in to a greater degree. I was throwing some of them away on reckless plays.
That shift in focus spurred a huge hot streak, and I was up $900 for the month in a huge hurry. I was doing so well, I was actually on pace to turn in a solid score for PokerStars' Battle of the Planets promotion. Basically, the way it works is, you can win some nice cash prizes if you have the best results over a block of 20 sit 'n gos. I needed to complete 11 on a Saturday morning – an obvious deviation from my three-tourneys-per-day regimen. I did not fare well, playing four at a time as I was. I usually only play two at a time, and though I went on a $200 downturn chasing the Battle of the Planets, I wasn't too perturbed. It was a risk worth taking, and the reasons for my struggles were fairly cut and dried.
The thing was, what I thought would be a short stretch of suckitude endured and became an epic $600 downswing. So discouraging. I gave myself a pep talk and briefly righted the ship, but then PokerStars just decided to rape me repeatedly in the luck department. I hate to tell bad beat stories, but here are some of the beats I've taken on the money bubble over the past week:
KK < QQ
AK < AQ
TT < 33
Each of those beats literally took money out of my bankroll, and that's just a sampling. Here's one that happened tonight, on the bubble of a $60 SNG:
-- First, the pre-beat. I'm second in chips with just north of 3,000, when the short stack ships all in on the button. The small blind is the chip leader, and he calls. I fold the big blind. Shorty shows J5o, chip leader shows KJ. Flop comes QTx, giving the chip leader an open-ended straight draw in addition to his dominating hand. Turn is a blank, and the river is a 5. So freaking gross. I relay this hand because my bubble beats are often preceded by a filthy short-stack double.
-- A couple orbits later, I've chipped up slightly to about 3,500. The chip leader has 6,000ish, and the other two have just north of 2,000. With the blinds at 100-200 with a 25 ante, I raise under the gun to 500 holding Qh8h. I'm on a steal. It folds around to the big blind, who calls. The flop comes QT6. He checks, I bet 600. He insta-shoves. I should add at this point, the dude had been playing extremely aggressive, and had authored some monster suckouts in order to have his stack. With about one-third of my stack already invested and a fairly solid read he was on a bluff, I called. He showed Ac6c for bottom pair. Turn was a blank, river was a 6. I would have been a dominating chip leader; instead I'm out the door. So upsetting to be attacked by a donkey like that. Thanks a million, PokerStars.
So that's where it's at. I've actually been playing really well over the past week; it's just a matter of running a little bit better. I've had a few nice moments during the month – a deep run in a multi-table tourney, and a win at a live game at a friend's house. But I feel the month could have been so much more profitable. But that's poker, as they say.
Bankroll: $6,900
One month after returning to the online poker world, I'm up $500. But after the roller-coaster it's been, and the amount of money I probably should have made, I'm fairly discouraged.
In lieu of a chart, here's a sentence summary of my bankroll adventures. I was up $400, down $300, up $800, down $600, up $400, and finally down $200 to land at +$500 for the month.
I've had countless periods of re-evaluation during this stretch. I began the month playing a much more aggressive style than I was used to, and I made it work for me. But playing that high-variance style, combined with playing too many tournaments, caused a nosedive. I decided I needed to get back to using the game plan detailed in Collin Moshman's book, Sit 'n Go Strategy, which is essentially solid early, aggressive late. I also decided I needed to play no more than three tourneys per day, so that I valued each buy-in to a greater degree. I was throwing some of them away on reckless plays.
That shift in focus spurred a huge hot streak, and I was up $900 for the month in a huge hurry. I was doing so well, I was actually on pace to turn in a solid score for PokerStars' Battle of the Planets promotion. Basically, the way it works is, you can win some nice cash prizes if you have the best results over a block of 20 sit 'n gos. I needed to complete 11 on a Saturday morning – an obvious deviation from my three-tourneys-per-day regimen. I did not fare well, playing four at a time as I was. I usually only play two at a time, and though I went on a $200 downturn chasing the Battle of the Planets, I wasn't too perturbed. It was a risk worth taking, and the reasons for my struggles were fairly cut and dried.
The thing was, what I thought would be a short stretch of suckitude endured and became an epic $600 downswing. So discouraging. I gave myself a pep talk and briefly righted the ship, but then PokerStars just decided to rape me repeatedly in the luck department. I hate to tell bad beat stories, but here are some of the beats I've taken on the money bubble over the past week:
KK < QQ
AK < AQ
TT < 33
Each of those beats literally took money out of my bankroll, and that's just a sampling. Here's one that happened tonight, on the bubble of a $60 SNG:
-- First, the pre-beat. I'm second in chips with just north of 3,000, when the short stack ships all in on the button. The small blind is the chip leader, and he calls. I fold the big blind. Shorty shows J5o, chip leader shows KJ. Flop comes QTx, giving the chip leader an open-ended straight draw in addition to his dominating hand. Turn is a blank, and the river is a 5. So freaking gross. I relay this hand because my bubble beats are often preceded by a filthy short-stack double.
-- A couple orbits later, I've chipped up slightly to about 3,500. The chip leader has 6,000ish, and the other two have just north of 2,000. With the blinds at 100-200 with a 25 ante, I raise under the gun to 500 holding Qh8h. I'm on a steal. It folds around to the big blind, who calls. The flop comes QT6. He checks, I bet 600. He insta-shoves. I should add at this point, the dude had been playing extremely aggressive, and had authored some monster suckouts in order to have his stack. With about one-third of my stack already invested and a fairly solid read he was on a bluff, I called. He showed Ac6c for bottom pair. Turn was a blank, river was a 6. I would have been a dominating chip leader; instead I'm out the door. So upsetting to be attacked by a donkey like that. Thanks a million, PokerStars.
So that's where it's at. I've actually been playing really well over the past week; it's just a matter of running a little bit better. I've had a few nice moments during the month – a deep run in a multi-table tourney, and a win at a live game at a friend's house. But I feel the month could have been so much more profitable. But that's poker, as they say.
Bankroll: $6,900
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Goin' Retro: My big win at the Rock
Three years ago, in May of 2008, I got a free media pass into a super-satellite tournament for the Coast to Coast Poker Championship at the River Rock Casino. This was the first event of the "WPT Canada" tour, and I'm fairly certain it was the last. I alluded to this tournament in a post a couple months back, and I managed to dig up the column that I wrote for the paper afterward. Since I originally wrote it for a non-poker audience, I've added some more technical information for your consumption. Enjoy!
**********
Have you heard the one about the journalist who wins his entry into a major poker tournament, improbably earns a huge payday and writes an award-winning story about it?
If you've read Positively Fifth Street, it's a familiar plot line. In 2000, author James McManus was assigned to cover the World Series of Poker for Harper's magazine, and elected to sink his entire advance fee into qualifying for the $10,000 buy-in main event. He ended up making the final table against all odds, earning $247,760 for his fifth-place finish, and the resulting volume is widely considered one of the best sports books of the past decade.
Recently, my status as a media celebrity (such as it is) afforded me a shot at my own mini-McManus moment. Jody Trainer, an Abbotsford poker pro whom I wrote a feature about in 2006, sent an e-mail offering me a free seat in a super-satellite tournament at the inaugural World Poker Tour Canada event at Richmond's River Rock Casino.
Being a bit of a poker aficionado, I jumped at the chance, selling it to my bosses as an opportunity to take the pulse of poker in Canada. I've been playing the game since 2000, when my buddy Matt and I looked up the rules for Texas hold 'em on the Internet after watching the Matt Damon-Ed Norton flick Rounders. Being that we were poor college students at the time, we'd go down to the corner store and buy boxes of Smarties to use as chips. Then we'd play late into the night, with the winner taking home a bucket of well-handled sweets.
In recent years, we've graduated to playing for vast sums of cash – 10 bucks per tournament, to be precise. Suffice it to say, I'm no high roller.
When I arrived at the River Rock Casino and found my seat, I glanced around to take stock of my opponents. To my left was Joy, a gregarious 77-year-old whose fashion sense echoed that of Johnny Cash, at least when it came to colour choice – black pants, black sweater, black faux-fur vest, black sunglasses, accented by a splashy silver necklace and matching earrings. She brightly informed me that she intended to become the oldest winner of the World Series of Poker women's championship.
Joy took up the game four years ago, and she lost 30 pounds when she started playing online because it cut down on her trips to the fridge. Joy said that poker is a profitable venture for her, and she needs it to be – her winnings supplement a modest pension.
"Find a good mutual fund, and put $100 in it every month," she advised me, using eye contact to emphasize her point. "You'll still be able to pay your rent."
To my immediate right was a young buck sporting a grey Billabong hoodie and a sparse chin-strap beard. He had just arrived at the River Rock after a 13-hour drive from Terrace. Like me, he'd never played in a big tournament before, but he said he'd had some success at $125 buy-in events at his local golf course. Unlike me, he liked to move all his chips into the middle with weak hands like J-10 and K-7. The poker gods must have been smiling on him, because he managed to build a huge stack in the first hour of play.
For the uninitiated, a super-satellite differs from a regular poker tourney in that everyone who finishes in the money wins the same prize. In this case, one out of every 20 players in the event would win a $4,000 prize package, representing buy-ins to a pair of no-limit hold'em tournaments.
In the early stages, I seemed to have a horseshoe embedded in my DNA. On the fifth hand of the event, I was dealt pocket tens in the big blind. The button opened the pot to 250 (blinds 25-50), and I re-raised to 750. The button called, and the flop made me do a double-take – a jack, a ten and another ten. The odds of flopping quads, I found out later, are approximately 407-to-1. I slow-played it effectively, and took about three-quarters of my opponent's stack without a showdown.
Unfortunately, I lost the next couple of hands I played, and I found myself on the razor's edge of elimination, barely treading water as the blinds rose. A couple hours in, I was down to about nine big blinds, and moved all in on the button with A8. I was gutted when the big blind called with AQ, but a miraculous eight materialized on the turn to keep me alive.
That doubled me up, but I was still mentally planning my drive back to Abbotsford when I picked up some massive hands. Twice in quick succession, I was dealt pocket aces and dragged huge pots to boost my chip stack.
Meanwhile, I saw Joy make her exit with under 100 players remaining. And with 55 players left, my buddy from Terrace joined her on the sidelines. There had been 598 entries (including rebuys), meaning that 30 of us would finish in the money.
At that point, the increasingly realistic possibility of winning $4,000 stripped me of any semblance of composure. My table demeanor became less James Bond and more Steve Urkel, and I was literally trembling at times.
Will, a young jet-setting pro from Toronto who was fresh off the plane from jaunts to Monte Carlo and Las Vegas, was seated to my left as the field shrank inside of 40 players. Taking into account my near-constant fidgeting, he started chatting with me in much the same tone that a suicide hotline operator might use to talk someone in off a ledge.
"Hey, you're definitely in the top 15 in chips," he told me, eying my stack. "All you've got to do is avoid confrontations and cruise to the money."
It was sound advice. I locked it down for the most part, but I did raise a couple of pots with legitimate hands and actually ended up busting a short-stacked player in 33rd place when he ran KQ into my AQ.
After eight-and-a-half hours of nerve-wracking play, the money bubble finally burst with the elimination of the 31st player. As I high-fived the other 29 survivors, part of me felt sorry for the guy who'd just been knocked out, but the other (more dominant) part of me was pretty stoked that I'd just won four grand.
I was headed to a wedding in Edmonton that weekend, and thus was unable to make use of the two tournament tickets (for events with $1,000 and $3,000 buy-ins). The casino, though, was nice enough to pay me out in cash instead.
Jody said he was pretty impressed with my performance, calling it "a nice little win." I guess that's a fair assessment – to put it in perspective, Jody boasts upwards of $800,000 in tournament winnings since 2006.
Indeed, I'm not the equal of James McManus as a poker player or a writer. But I've got a pretty cool story to tell my friends.
**********
To this day, this tournament represents the largest score of my modest poker career. It was quite a windfall for me at the time – I was just two months away from my wedding, and I used the cash to pay off the remainder of my car loan and to cover the costs of our honeymoon. It definitely put my wife and I in a much stronger financial position heading into married life, and the tourney itself is simply a great memory.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Stuff I Like: Breaking Bad
Allow me to introduce what I hope will become a regular feature on this blog – the only obstacle being my short attention span. "Stuff I Like" will feature, ummm . . . how to explain this . . . stuff I like. Media – movies, TV, music – will be the primary subject matter.
I wouldn't call myself an expert in terms of movies and TV, and though I am a classically trained musician, I'm not necessarily a music nut who has all the latest and greatest albums. My conceit, though, is that I believe I have very good taste. I know what I like. And I like cool stuff.
For my first foray into this realm, I can think of no better piece of media to recommend than "Breaking Bad". Now I'm as big a fan of "Mad Men" as anybody, but for my money, its AMC cousin "Breaking Bad" is the best show on TV.
I believe we live in a golden age of television drama, and "Breaking Bad" represents all the best elements of the medium at the moment. The production values are more in line with what you'd see in a movie, but when you give a talented writer/producer like Vince Gilligan the freedom to tell a story over multiple 13-episode seasons, the end result is delicious. Movies tend to be like fast food; great TV shows like "Breaking Bad" are slow-cooked to perfection.
I was late hopping on the "Breaking Bad" bandwagon, to be perfectly honest. Based on the promo commercials, the premise didn't grab me right away. High school chemistry teacher Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston – best known at the time for his role as the dad on Malcolm in the Middle – has been diagnosed with lung cancer, so he decides to cook crystal meth as a means for providing for his family. It just didn't seem like a barrel of laughs.
I happened to stumble across a couple episodes midway through Season 2, and the show gradually started to burrow its way into my cranium. I watched Season 3 in its entirety, then went back and bought the first two seasons on DVD and caught up on all the episodes I've missed.
Season 4 is set to debut on AMC on Sunday, July 17, and I'm positively giddy. "Breaking Bad" is what I imagine it would be like if the Coen brothers made a TV show, with a little dash of Tarantino in the mix.
The show is dark, no doubt about it, and it isn't for everyone. But it is undeniably brilliant. Cranston has been full value for his three Emmy awards as outstanding lead actor in a drama series, and his wingman Aaron Paul (playing Jesse Pinkman, Walter White's junkie-with-a-heart-of-gold partner in crime) really came into his own in Season 3. He won he Emmy for best supporting actor last year. Their complex father/son-type relationship is the heart of the show.
White's unlikely journey from bland family man to drug kingpin is a fascinating one, and it's written and presented in logical way, as much as such an unlikely scenario could be.
The show is darkly hilarious at times, and the supporting characters are well-conceived. My favourites are Hank Schrader, White's macho brother-in-law who happens to be a DEA agent, and Walter Jr., White's son who suffers from cerebral palsy.
If you're not sold on "Breaking Bad" just yet, there was an excellent feature in Newsweek analyzing the success of the show, and previewing the upcoming fourth season. You can check it out by clicking right here.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Grinding out a cash in Vegas
I've had two laptops bite the dust over the last five months, but at long last, I own a legit computer.
So you can expect to see a few more regular updates at this site, including the recap of my Vegas tournament that I promised earlier. That's what this is. Included with this post will be the outcome of my "Hand of the week" that I posted a while back.
FINDING THE RIGHT GAME
Before we headed to Vegas, my buddy Jayeson and I did a bit of research on where the best single-day poker tournaments were held. The site allvegaspoker.com was a tremendous resource.
The general consensus online – backed up by a look at the structure sheets – is that the Venetian is the place to be. We also considered Caesar's Palace and the World Series of Poker at the Rio.
The structures at Caesar's daily tournaments are quite comparable to the Venetian, but the rake at the Venetian was markedly lower in the buy-in range we were looking at ($100-$200). The Venetian's daily $150 noon tournament returns 86 per cent of the buy-in to the prize pool, while Caesar's $85 nooner returned only 76 per cent.
The tourneys at all three places had half-hour-long levels, but the WSOP daily (non-bracelet) tourneys had smaller starting stacks, a couple of missing levels, and the antes started earlier. Not as good a structure and not as much value, and the lure of the WSOP brand wasn't enough to overcome that.
When we got to Vegas, we discovered that the schedules at the casinos were slightly different than we'd expected. Dovetailing with the WSOP, the Venetian was holding its Deep Stack series, and Caesar's was hosting its Mega Stacks series. The Venetian tourneys were out of our ideal price range – upwards of $300 – so we showed up at Caesar's for their $130 buy-in event on Monday.
HOT START
Enough foreplay. Let's talk poker.
At Caesar's, players begin with 15,000 chips and 50-100 blinds. The stacks are deep enough that you can play fairly solid poker, and that's what I did. Over the first two-and-a-half levels, I played just eight hands where I voluntarily put chips into the pot. But I won six of them, chipping up to 32,000 in the process. I wish I could remember some of these hands, but they're escaping me at the moment.
The event drew 371 players, paying 36 spots, including about $7,500 for first. I played with guys from Russia, France, Italy, England, and a few gents from other provinces in Canada. I imagine tournaments in Vegas generally have a fairly high tourist factor, but the fact the WSOP was in town made it a particularly interesting time to be there. Everybody who played poker on the planet seemed to be in town. At least, that was the illusion.
DONKEY BOMBED
There was this guy seated directly to my right who fancied himself the table captain. I might have been annoyed with him, but instead I chose just to be amused.
The dude was in his early 50s, with a greying goatee and leathery sun-burned skin. He took it upon himself to make sure everyone had their antes in, and got into arguments about etiquette a couple times. Classic. Mr. Leather Skin felt it was his God-given right to play every single pot, and he took FOREVER to make a decision pre-flop. Every pair of napkins that landed in front of him required a full-fledged production number as he moaned about how to play this monster, how he just had to call that raise and reraise. The vast majority of the time, he'd call. The man was loose-passive, and a crazy calling station.
He actually played the style reasonably well, but his chip stack obviously did a crazy roller-coaster routine. I steered clear of him for about an hour and 15 minutes, then we finally locked horns.
I hadn't played a hand in a while, so I felt the need to raise with AJ under the gun (a bit loose, maybe). I got a caller in middle position, and of course, Mr. Leather Skin just had to call in the big blind.
The flop was a beauty – AJ3, two diamonds. I decided to slow-play, and we checked it around. The turn was a club, somewhere around an 8. Mr. Leather Skin bet 1,500, and I put in a big raise to 5,000. To my utter shock, the other player in the hand flat-called, and Mr. Leather Face called as well.
The river was gross – the 9 of diamonds. Leather checked, I wasn't putting another chip in the pot, and the other player checked as well. Loud-mouth rolled over T4 of diamonds to take it down. The other player claimed to have 52 of clubs – gutshot straight draw on the flop, flush draw on the turn.
That pot would have had me nearing 45,000 chips, but instead I was knocked down to 23,000. Gaaaaaaah.
RUNNING REALLY GOOD
I felt I had the best seat at the table – to the left of the uber-loose heehaw. But for the next hour and a half, I couldn't find a reasonable hand to play with him. I was utterly card-dead. I ended up blinding down to my starting stack of 15,000 . . . and with the blinds at 500-1,000, that was rather short.
I finally found AJ in middle/late position, and pumped it up to 2500. It folded around to an affable Englishman in the small blind, and he shipped all in with a covering stack. This was not a good spot, so I mucked.
Two hands later, I found AJ again. Once again, I raised to 2500. Once again, the same player – now in the cutoff – shipped all in with a shrug. I had around 10,000 behind, and I was a little suspicious that the same player made the exact same move on me. Was he bullying me? At any rate, if I folded, I'd only have 10 big blinds left. I figured I could well be trailing, but I had to make a stand sometime, so I called.
He flipped over AK, and I was in terrible shape. The flop came down ATx, the turn was a king, and the river was a glorious queen to give me a very fortunate broadway straight. He told me he'd had AK the previous hand he'd shoved on me, as well. Better to be lucky than good sometimes, I guess.
A couple hands later, I finally found a good spot to go to war with Mr. Leather Skin. He raised in early position, and I made a beefy re-raise with KK. He called – of course – and we saw a flop of 642, two diamonds. He checked, and I made a healthy value bet – about 40 per cent of my remaining stack. He check-raised enough to put me all in, and I called.
He rolled over J5 of diamonds, and I just about barfed. He had a gutshot straight flush draw – 12 outs in all. But I managed to fade both the turn and the river, and chipped up to more than 50,000. Phew.
CHIPPING UP
In possession of an above-average stack after that double-up, I began to chip up steadily. My table broke just before the dinner break, and I joined a new table with a bunch of big-stacked players.
On the last hand before dinner, an Eastern European player raised in middle position to 15,000 (blinds were 3,000-6,000, ante 500). I found AK in the big blind, and decided a shove was in order. I pushed about 78,000 into the middle, and after a few moments' thought, my opponent open-mucked JJ. He didn't want to race there, and neither did I. That pot took me over the 100,000 mark, and I had an above-average stack as the money bubble approached.
THE HAND I DIDN'T PLAY, AND THE HAND I DID
If there's one hand where I look back and second-guess myself, it's this one.
We were down to about 40 players – with 36 getting paid – with the blinds at 5,000-10,000, ante 1,000. The player under the gun pushed all in, and I looked down to find JJ in middle position. I asked for a count, and he had about 65,000. At this point, I had just a smidge over 120,000. I felt quite strongly that he probably had AK or AQ, and ultimately, I didn't want to race for half my stack so close to the bubble. So I folded.
In retrospect, I was almost certainly ahead, so calling wasn't a terrible idea. There's no way he had AA or KK, and I highly doubt he had QQ. Given that he was under the gun, it may have been a desperate attempt to steal the blinds. But I was quite convinced of my read, and I went with it, hoping I'd find a better spot.
Two hands later, I found one. The player to my right shipped all in for about 50,000, and I woke up with KK. I re-shoved to isolate, and he had 88. My hand held up to take me to 193,000. The chip average was about 135,000. I was going to make a deeeeeeep run, I figured.
TRENDING DOWNWARD
Regrettably, that represented my high water mark. I didn't find a good spot to play a hand for a lap and a half, and with the blinds at a predatory level, I was soon back down to chip average.
The bubble thankfully burst – a player got it all in with KK, but was run down by AJ on the river. Rough. But I was happy. Not going to lie.
I didn't necessarily just sit idly by and blind away. The table was playing very standard and tight, so I got a little frisky in the cutoff and raised to 25,000 with 93o. The small blind – the biggest stack at the table – shoved all in, and I had to release.
A while later, I tangled with the same player in a blind-vs-blind battle (the player between us busted, leaving an empty seat). I had given him a walk the previous lap, and this time I limped with QJ. The flop came AT8, giving me a double-gutshot straight draw. I fired 25,000, and he called, to my mild chagrin. I put him on a 10 – there's no way he would let me see a cheap flop if he had an ace. The turn was a Q, which if my read was correct, put me in the lead. So I fired 30,000 (leaving maybe 50,000 behind), and after hemming and hawing, he folded.
The very next hand, I had QQ on the button, min-raised, got action in the big blind, and then shoved on a rag flop.
That left me at 144,500 . . . and brings us back to the hand of the week from my June 10 post. To avoid redundancy, I'll let you go back to that post to get up to speed on the action if necessary.
(Waiting . . .)
(Waiting . . .)
Okay, that's enough.
THE END
So I got to the flop holding QcTc, and saw the board roll out Q73. With one player already all in, my only live opponent bet out 25,000. I thought about it for a moment, but with only 96,500 left, I decided a shove was in order. He snap-called with 77, and I was out the door in 34th for a $250 min-cash. (The big blind shover, incidentally, preceded me out the door. He had A8o).
I was very proud to cash at a live tourney in Vegas, but I was also fairly upset with myself afterward because I had an inkling my opponent was very strong in that spot. The proverbial alarm bells were definitely going off when he bet the flop. But when you see a flop with QT, with the stack sizes being what they were, it's hard not to get married to top pair. Credit to the dude who busted me – his bet on the flop was sized perfectly. It gave me the illusion that I had some fold equity.
In some ways, the hand played itself. But I'd like to learn from it. Next time, I'll take more time to ponder the question: Why on earth would he bet the flop?
The tournament was a blast, and my buddy Jayeson also made a nice run. He finished 65th, within shouting distance of the money.
I've got tentative plans to make another Vegas run next year. This time, it'll be more of a poker trip as opposed to a tourist thing. VEGAS BABY!
So you can expect to see a few more regular updates at this site, including the recap of my Vegas tournament that I promised earlier. That's what this is. Included with this post will be the outcome of my "Hand of the week" that I posted a while back.
FINDING THE RIGHT GAME
Before we headed to Vegas, my buddy Jayeson and I did a bit of research on where the best single-day poker tournaments were held. The site allvegaspoker.com was a tremendous resource.
The general consensus online – backed up by a look at the structure sheets – is that the Venetian is the place to be. We also considered Caesar's Palace and the World Series of Poker at the Rio.
The structures at Caesar's daily tournaments are quite comparable to the Venetian, but the rake at the Venetian was markedly lower in the buy-in range we were looking at ($100-$200). The Venetian's daily $150 noon tournament returns 86 per cent of the buy-in to the prize pool, while Caesar's $85 nooner returned only 76 per cent.
The tourneys at all three places had half-hour-long levels, but the WSOP daily (non-bracelet) tourneys had smaller starting stacks, a couple of missing levels, and the antes started earlier. Not as good a structure and not as much value, and the lure of the WSOP brand wasn't enough to overcome that.
When we got to Vegas, we discovered that the schedules at the casinos were slightly different than we'd expected. Dovetailing with the WSOP, the Venetian was holding its Deep Stack series, and Caesar's was hosting its Mega Stacks series. The Venetian tourneys were out of our ideal price range – upwards of $300 – so we showed up at Caesar's for their $130 buy-in event on Monday.
HOT START
Enough foreplay. Let's talk poker.
At Caesar's, players begin with 15,000 chips and 50-100 blinds. The stacks are deep enough that you can play fairly solid poker, and that's what I did. Over the first two-and-a-half levels, I played just eight hands where I voluntarily put chips into the pot. But I won six of them, chipping up to 32,000 in the process. I wish I could remember some of these hands, but they're escaping me at the moment.
The event drew 371 players, paying 36 spots, including about $7,500 for first. I played with guys from Russia, France, Italy, England, and a few gents from other provinces in Canada. I imagine tournaments in Vegas generally have a fairly high tourist factor, but the fact the WSOP was in town made it a particularly interesting time to be there. Everybody who played poker on the planet seemed to be in town. At least, that was the illusion.
DONKEY BOMBED
There was this guy seated directly to my right who fancied himself the table captain. I might have been annoyed with him, but instead I chose just to be amused.
The dude was in his early 50s, with a greying goatee and leathery sun-burned skin. He took it upon himself to make sure everyone had their antes in, and got into arguments about etiquette a couple times. Classic. Mr. Leather Skin felt it was his God-given right to play every single pot, and he took FOREVER to make a decision pre-flop. Every pair of napkins that landed in front of him required a full-fledged production number as he moaned about how to play this monster, how he just had to call that raise and reraise. The vast majority of the time, he'd call. The man was loose-passive, and a crazy calling station.
He actually played the style reasonably well, but his chip stack obviously did a crazy roller-coaster routine. I steered clear of him for about an hour and 15 minutes, then we finally locked horns.
I hadn't played a hand in a while, so I felt the need to raise with AJ under the gun (a bit loose, maybe). I got a caller in middle position, and of course, Mr. Leather Skin just had to call in the big blind.
The flop was a beauty – AJ3, two diamonds. I decided to slow-play, and we checked it around. The turn was a club, somewhere around an 8. Mr. Leather Skin bet 1,500, and I put in a big raise to 5,000. To my utter shock, the other player in the hand flat-called, and Mr. Leather Face called as well.
The river was gross – the 9 of diamonds. Leather checked, I wasn't putting another chip in the pot, and the other player checked as well. Loud-mouth rolled over T4 of diamonds to take it down. The other player claimed to have 52 of clubs – gutshot straight draw on the flop, flush draw on the turn.
That pot would have had me nearing 45,000 chips, but instead I was knocked down to 23,000. Gaaaaaaah.
RUNNING REALLY GOOD
I felt I had the best seat at the table – to the left of the uber-loose heehaw. But for the next hour and a half, I couldn't find a reasonable hand to play with him. I was utterly card-dead. I ended up blinding down to my starting stack of 15,000 . . . and with the blinds at 500-1,000, that was rather short.
I finally found AJ in middle/late position, and pumped it up to 2500. It folded around to an affable Englishman in the small blind, and he shipped all in with a covering stack. This was not a good spot, so I mucked.
Two hands later, I found AJ again. Once again, I raised to 2500. Once again, the same player – now in the cutoff – shipped all in with a shrug. I had around 10,000 behind, and I was a little suspicious that the same player made the exact same move on me. Was he bullying me? At any rate, if I folded, I'd only have 10 big blinds left. I figured I could well be trailing, but I had to make a stand sometime, so I called.
He flipped over AK, and I was in terrible shape. The flop came down ATx, the turn was a king, and the river was a glorious queen to give me a very fortunate broadway straight. He told me he'd had AK the previous hand he'd shoved on me, as well. Better to be lucky than good sometimes, I guess.
A couple hands later, I finally found a good spot to go to war with Mr. Leather Skin. He raised in early position, and I made a beefy re-raise with KK. He called – of course – and we saw a flop of 642, two diamonds. He checked, and I made a healthy value bet – about 40 per cent of my remaining stack. He check-raised enough to put me all in, and I called.
He rolled over J5 of diamonds, and I just about barfed. He had a gutshot straight flush draw – 12 outs in all. But I managed to fade both the turn and the river, and chipped up to more than 50,000. Phew.
CHIPPING UP
In possession of an above-average stack after that double-up, I began to chip up steadily. My table broke just before the dinner break, and I joined a new table with a bunch of big-stacked players.
On the last hand before dinner, an Eastern European player raised in middle position to 15,000 (blinds were 3,000-6,000, ante 500). I found AK in the big blind, and decided a shove was in order. I pushed about 78,000 into the middle, and after a few moments' thought, my opponent open-mucked JJ. He didn't want to race there, and neither did I. That pot took me over the 100,000 mark, and I had an above-average stack as the money bubble approached.
THE HAND I DIDN'T PLAY, AND THE HAND I DID
If there's one hand where I look back and second-guess myself, it's this one.
We were down to about 40 players – with 36 getting paid – with the blinds at 5,000-10,000, ante 1,000. The player under the gun pushed all in, and I looked down to find JJ in middle position. I asked for a count, and he had about 65,000. At this point, I had just a smidge over 120,000. I felt quite strongly that he probably had AK or AQ, and ultimately, I didn't want to race for half my stack so close to the bubble. So I folded.
In retrospect, I was almost certainly ahead, so calling wasn't a terrible idea. There's no way he had AA or KK, and I highly doubt he had QQ. Given that he was under the gun, it may have been a desperate attempt to steal the blinds. But I was quite convinced of my read, and I went with it, hoping I'd find a better spot.
Two hands later, I found one. The player to my right shipped all in for about 50,000, and I woke up with KK. I re-shoved to isolate, and he had 88. My hand held up to take me to 193,000. The chip average was about 135,000. I was going to make a deeeeeeep run, I figured.
TRENDING DOWNWARD
Regrettably, that represented my high water mark. I didn't find a good spot to play a hand for a lap and a half, and with the blinds at a predatory level, I was soon back down to chip average.
The bubble thankfully burst – a player got it all in with KK, but was run down by AJ on the river. Rough. But I was happy. Not going to lie.
I didn't necessarily just sit idly by and blind away. The table was playing very standard and tight, so I got a little frisky in the cutoff and raised to 25,000 with 93o. The small blind – the biggest stack at the table – shoved all in, and I had to release.
A while later, I tangled with the same player in a blind-vs-blind battle (the player between us busted, leaving an empty seat). I had given him a walk the previous lap, and this time I limped with QJ. The flop came AT8, giving me a double-gutshot straight draw. I fired 25,000, and he called, to my mild chagrin. I put him on a 10 – there's no way he would let me see a cheap flop if he had an ace. The turn was a Q, which if my read was correct, put me in the lead. So I fired 30,000 (leaving maybe 50,000 behind), and after hemming and hawing, he folded.
The very next hand, I had QQ on the button, min-raised, got action in the big blind, and then shoved on a rag flop.
That left me at 144,500 . . . and brings us back to the hand of the week from my June 10 post. To avoid redundancy, I'll let you go back to that post to get up to speed on the action if necessary.
(Waiting . . .)
(Waiting . . .)
Okay, that's enough.
THE END
So I got to the flop holding QcTc, and saw the board roll out Q73. With one player already all in, my only live opponent bet out 25,000. I thought about it for a moment, but with only 96,500 left, I decided a shove was in order. He snap-called with 77, and I was out the door in 34th for a $250 min-cash. (The big blind shover, incidentally, preceded me out the door. He had A8o).
I was very proud to cash at a live tourney in Vegas, but I was also fairly upset with myself afterward because I had an inkling my opponent was very strong in that spot. The proverbial alarm bells were definitely going off when he bet the flop. But when you see a flop with QT, with the stack sizes being what they were, it's hard not to get married to top pair. Credit to the dude who busted me – his bet on the flop was sized perfectly. It gave me the illusion that I had some fold equity.
In some ways, the hand played itself. But I'd like to learn from it. Next time, I'll take more time to ponder the question: Why on earth would he bet the flop?
The tournament was a blast, and my buddy Jayeson also made a nice run. He finished 65th, within shouting distance of the money.
I've got tentative plans to make another Vegas run next year. This time, it'll be more of a poker trip as opposed to a tourist thing. VEGAS BABY!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
VEGAS, BABY! VEGAAAASSSSS!
I was in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago, and what a time to be there.
The trip – with my wife and another couple – wasn’t necessarily a poker jaunt, but it just so happened that the World Series of Poker was going on at the same time. At this time of year more than any other, Vegas is the Mecca of poker. Sweet.
We landed in Vegas on Sunday afternoon (June 5), and spent the rest of the day checking out the sights at the casinos (the wives had never been before).
We really wore ourselves out, hiking from our home base at the Monte Carlo up to the Venetian, stopping at every casino along the way. By the time we got back to our rooms at 11 p.m., everyone was pretty much ready to crash. I had some work to do, filing a story for Tuesday’s paper, so I stayed up later. After I was finished, I decided to jog over to the Rio to stick my head in at the WSOP. I didn’t think the women would be necessarily thrilled about that activity, so heading over late at night on my own seemed like a decent idea.
It turned out to be a good call, even though the Rio turned out to be a lot further away than it looked on the map. I arrived at around midnight, and on my way to the Amazon room, I spotted my first quasi-celebrity – former NAPT final tablist Chris DeMaci, discussing the details of a bust-out hand with a couple buddies.
Stepping into the room itself was trippy. It’s a massive space, rows of poker tables as far as the eye can see – a familiar sight from the WSOP main event broadcasts. Just inside the door, the final two tables of Event 9 ($1,500 2-7 draw lowball) were being played. Seated at the end of one of the tables was superstar Jason Mercier, sitting behind a towering chip stack he could hardly see over. So cool. I also recognized ESPN.com columnist Bernard Lee and Pittsburgh pro Josh Brikis. Watching from the other side of the ropes was Sam Chauhan, the noted mindset coach who has worked with the likes of Antonio Esfandiari, David Williams and Chris Moneymaker. Between hands, Lee would come over and confer with him.
I watched the Mercier-Lee table for a while, then wandered over to the feature table area, where they were down to heads-up in Event 7 ($10,000 pot-limit hold’em championship). The two players remaining – Amir Lehavot and Jarred Solomon – weren't particularly famous, but it was exceedingly cool watching them battle it out for the bracelet. Lehavot had the chip lead, and after giving Solomon a double-up (A9 > A7), he wrapped it up when his AQ held up against Solomon’s AJ. (The photo at the top of this post was taken on my iPhone at the moment the river card came off to clinch Lehavot’s bracelet.)
Maybe five feet away from me, apparently there in support of Solomon, was online superstar Daniel Cates. The 21-year-old was the top online cash-game earner last year, turning a profit of about $5.5 million. So sick.
I took a cab back to the Monte Carlo and rolled into bed at around 1:30 a.m., my mind thoroughly blown by the whole WSOP scene. The next day, I had the opportunity to play some poker myself. I’ll detail that in my next post.
The trip – with my wife and another couple – wasn’t necessarily a poker jaunt, but it just so happened that the World Series of Poker was going on at the same time. At this time of year more than any other, Vegas is the Mecca of poker. Sweet.
We landed in Vegas on Sunday afternoon (June 5), and spent the rest of the day checking out the sights at the casinos (the wives had never been before).
We really wore ourselves out, hiking from our home base at the Monte Carlo up to the Venetian, stopping at every casino along the way. By the time we got back to our rooms at 11 p.m., everyone was pretty much ready to crash. I had some work to do, filing a story for Tuesday’s paper, so I stayed up later. After I was finished, I decided to jog over to the Rio to stick my head in at the WSOP. I didn’t think the women would be necessarily thrilled about that activity, so heading over late at night on my own seemed like a decent idea.
It turned out to be a good call, even though the Rio turned out to be a lot further away than it looked on the map. I arrived at around midnight, and on my way to the Amazon room, I spotted my first quasi-celebrity – former NAPT final tablist Chris DeMaci, discussing the details of a bust-out hand with a couple buddies.
Stepping into the room itself was trippy. It’s a massive space, rows of poker tables as far as the eye can see – a familiar sight from the WSOP main event broadcasts. Just inside the door, the final two tables of Event 9 ($1,500 2-7 draw lowball) were being played. Seated at the end of one of the tables was superstar Jason Mercier, sitting behind a towering chip stack he could hardly see over. So cool. I also recognized ESPN.com columnist Bernard Lee and Pittsburgh pro Josh Brikis. Watching from the other side of the ropes was Sam Chauhan, the noted mindset coach who has worked with the likes of Antonio Esfandiari, David Williams and Chris Moneymaker. Between hands, Lee would come over and confer with him.
I watched the Mercier-Lee table for a while, then wandered over to the feature table area, where they were down to heads-up in Event 7 ($10,000 pot-limit hold’em championship). The two players remaining – Amir Lehavot and Jarred Solomon – weren't particularly famous, but it was exceedingly cool watching them battle it out for the bracelet. Lehavot had the chip lead, and after giving Solomon a double-up (A9 > A7), he wrapped it up when his AQ held up against Solomon’s AJ. (The photo at the top of this post was taken on my iPhone at the moment the river card came off to clinch Lehavot’s bracelet.)
Maybe five feet away from me, apparently there in support of Solomon, was online superstar Daniel Cates. The 21-year-old was the top online cash-game earner last year, turning a profit of about $5.5 million. So sick.
I took a cab back to the Monte Carlo and rolled into bed at around 1:30 a.m., my mind thoroughly blown by the whole WSOP scene. The next day, I had the opportunity to play some poker myself. I’ll detail that in my next post.
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