I posted a little note last week after watching the 2008 WSOP Event 2 airing on ESPN, as it was a noteworthy final table. Some of you may particularly remember the feud between Theo Tran and Mike Ngo that went down, as well as "Jesus" Ferguson being his typical classy self at a table that was seemingly hurting for class, and also Grant Hinkle and his mother hitting quads with T4s to seal the deal.
Well today I happened upon a post over at 2+2 (where else?) in which both Grant Hinkle (drossxyu) and Theo Tran (obvious username) have added there input into what went down at the table. Here's the link: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=259875
There's a lot of Theo-bashing to sort through, and to my surprise he does a decent job of dispelling some of the speculation about what a punk he is... after reading his posts he doesn't seem as much of a jackass as ESPN made him out to be, just a very competitive and emotional player... and I agree that Ngo was really asking for it with his behavior.
The thing that was of more interest to me though is Grant talking about how heads-up action lasted 2 hours but was boiled down to only 2 hands on the ESPN airing. This is particularly important in explaining Grant's move with T4s into James Akenhead's AK reraise. Plus it goes to show that you really don't even get a fraction of the big tournament picture in ESPN's coverage. I was also glad to see that I wasn't the only one experiencing the sudden changes in picture where the cards were going off my screen for minutes at a time.
On a related note, I missed Event 3 last night, but will try to catch it on YouTube I guess. I was spending time with the lady friend instead, and I didn't think she would enjoy 2 hours of poker... and I can definitely understand that after watching ESPN's coverage of Event 2. We had dinner with her family instead and watched some It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes... good times.
I'm about to play in the $32k on Full Tilt tonight, and if I bust out of that early I might give The Mookie a shot. (Edit: busted out of the $32k in 708th - got AK early, flopped TPTK, but gave it up on the turn to some donk with a little flush, then folded my way up to the first break, finally picked up KK but just got the blinds, 99 got the blinds as well and added a little to my stack, but still about half average, then QQ in the SB went up against K7o in the BB that tried to get cute and resteal... and of course hit the King, and here I am. Decided not to play The Mookie and just call it a night.)
See you out there. - B
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
$50 Freeroll on Full Tilt Poker
That's right boys and girls, yours truly is putting up 50 beans of his own for all Sloppy Deuce tournament winners. All you have to do is be one of the first 9 players to win a Deuce (I was the first, so there are 8 more spots) and you'll automatically be entered into the $50 freeroll on Full Tilt Poker, at a time to be determined once we have 9 individual champions.
Remember, your next chance to win your way in is this Sunday at 2:00 PM EST, and just a $2.00+.50 buy-in (see giant Angry Baby banner above). I'd suggest giving it a shot sooner rather than later while the field is still pathetically small. Seriously... it's sad. I wept for hours last week. Then I watched Gilmore Girls on DVD and ate an entire tub of ice cream. And I'm still being completely serious.
Anyways, hope to see you there... giving me your chips.
More info:
Sloppy Deuce details: The Deuce Cometh!
Full Tilt Poker: Full Tilt Poker (enter IMOPOKER as the bonus code, email me your player name, and I'll ship you $10 for free).
Remember, your next chance to win your way in is this Sunday at 2:00 PM EST, and just a $2.00+.50 buy-in (see giant Angry Baby banner above). I'd suggest giving it a shot sooner rather than later while the field is still pathetically small. Seriously... it's sad. I wept for hours last week. Then I watched Gilmore Girls on DVD and ate an entire tub of ice cream. And I'm still being completely serious.
Anyways, hope to see you there... giving me your chips.
More info:
Sloppy Deuce details: The Deuce Cometh!
Full Tilt Poker: Full Tilt Poker (enter IMOPOKER as the bonus code, email me your player name, and I'll ship you $10 for free).
Monday, August 4, 2008
Sloppy Poker Goodness for the Whole Family
Alright good people, I'm passing up the $32k guarantee tonight to post this random mess of poker things. I've been running colder than a polar bear's sphincter lately, so I'm really in no rush to jump back in and lose the $26 token I managed to smuggle out last night, plus there's a fair amount of stuff to put up since the last post. Let's get started with the news I'm sure everyone is waiting for...
SLOPPY DEUCE #1 RESULTS
The first Sloppy Deuce tournament in TPTM history managed to scrape together a small field of players... basically a few of my buds who also had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon. Yours truly managed to take it down, which was probably the highlight of my weekend, as sad as that may seem. The final finishes were as follows:
1st - MrBo1011 ($8)
2nd - trainofbutter
3rd - jayman2117
4th - craigulator19
My man Criggles has been running pretty hot since he got back into playing online, and he came out aggressive, picking up a lot of pots before the flop and taking an early lead. I managed to even things out with a little KK trap where I limped in and hit a set, with a QJ that hit top two for the BB special, and then took him out with pocket 10's when he lead out into me with K7 that hit top pair on a 7-high flop after calling my button raise.
Jay managed a 3rd place finish even after apparently not showing up... although you never know with Jay since he's a terrible poker player... which ironically makes him extremely dangerous... plus he did actually manage to win one hand. He couldn't stay in the game though when he was all-in in the SB and I took him out with 34 against his dominating A4.
Then there was the trainofbutter, who just hadn't gotten anything going the whole time and was pretty much out of it. He did manage to scrap back just a little though, with a magnificent river suckout - ATs against his A6o that spiked the river 6. But then things headed downhill again until he made a perfectly reasonable push into my flopped flush. Here's the final hand:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 40/80 Blinds, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BB: 560
Hero (SB): 5,440
Pre-Flop: (120) 9d 8d dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero calls 40, BB checks
Flop: (160) 7d Qd 5d (2 Players)
BB bets 480 and is All-In, Hero calls 480
Turn: (1,120) 4c (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (1,120) Ks (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 1,120 Pot
BB showed Qh 6d (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-560 NET)
Hero showed 9d 8d (a flush, Queen high) and WON 1,120 (+560 NET)
GG gents. Hope to see you all back next Sunday, as well as some newcomers hopefully.
WEEKEND SNG MADNESS
Moving on to the rest of this weekend... ugh... where to begin. Basically it all sucked. It started with my Aces getting cracked by 65o after I raised about 234876234xBB before the flop in a $5 90-seater, then something crappy happened in a $10 SNG, can't remember what at this point. Then I made the money in a $5 90-seater, but busted in 13th after making an unfortunate resteal attempt with a mediocre suited Ace (should have realized my fold equity was not as good as I thought... and that my opponent had AA). And then things got really fun when I went another 9 $10 SNG's over Friday and Saturday and only managed to cash in 2... and both 3rd places at that. It was just a terrible run... probably my worst to date. In 2 spots I got down a bit early, losing about 1/3rd of my stack with AQ hands... once to a very passive AK, and once to K9 (shudder). Then I just couldn't catch a break. I was 0/4 in bubble coinflips, and also managed to lose AK to AJ that called all-in on a gutshot aaaaaaaaaaaaaand hit, of course... then QQ against AQ that put his chips in on a J-high flop and of course managed to turn the Ace.
Understandably, it was a sick weekend... a fairly cataclysmal downswing if I do say so myself. Of course I did start out at the $10 SNG's with a ridiculous hot streak (7 cashes out of 8, 5 of them wins), so now my stats actually seem a bit more normal, with a 33% ROI. Still not a significant sample size of only 35, but it's a start.
So from here I think I'm going to take a break from the $10 SNG's and try to play a few $5 90-seaters. I've had really good results from those thus far, and I even donked around in the $3 KO tourney the other night and scraped out an 8th place finish in that... not a big cash though, particularly considering that I only had 1 KO. For now though, I just need a little breather. It's nice to know that I'm not that distraught over the whole cold streak, while at the same time I'm not completely pessimistic about my luck and chances of winning and don't do the "ohhh, looks like another coinflip situation, I'll probably lose this one too" kind of thing. I'm in a good place where it is what it is, I can't do anything about it but focus on the next game or next hand, and ultimately... it's just money. In the big picture of things, I'm still overall very much in the black from when I started tracking my bankroll, but I'm also just in one giant freeroll. I've still yet to deposit a dime of my own money, and am grinding away with the original freeroll winnings and "free $50" offers on Party Poker (what Poker?) from years ago. So yeah this weekend sucked, but all-in-all, life is very good!
WTF HAND OF THE EON
With all the craptastic hands going down for me this weekend, there were probably a good 3-dozen or so hands that I felt could have been posted as "WTF" hands of the (insert measurement of time here). This hand however, from one of the biggest donks I have seen around EVER, clearly takes the cake. Fortunately I was not involved in the hand, for had it been my Aces that were being cracked, I probably would have ground my keyboard into a fine powder (though I also would have kicked myself for 3-betting... yes 3-betting... with Aces???)
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 20/40 Blinds, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: 1,240
BTN: 2,420
SB: 1,375
BB: 1,680
UTG: 2,150
UTG+1: 1,910
MP1: 670
Hero (MP2): 2,055
Pre-Flop: (60) 8c 5d dealt to Hero (MP2)
UTG raises to 80, UTG+1 raises to 120, MP1 calls 120, 2 folds, BTN calls 120, 2 folds, UTG calls 40
Flop: (540) 9h 3s Js (4 Players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 bets 540, MP1 folds, BTN calls 540, UTG folds
Turn: (1,620) Tc (2 Players)
UTG+1 bets 1,250 and is All-In, BTN calls 1,250
River: (4,120) Kc (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 4,120 Pot
BTN showed 8d 7d (a straight, Jack high) and WON 4,120 (+2,210 NET)
UTG+1 showed As Ah (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-1,910 NET)
REVISITING FULL TILT'S TIER SNG'S
Some of you may remember back in March I had a little experiment with the Tier SNG's on Full Tilt... which unfortunately didn't end the way I had hoped and made me realize the displeasure that can come with the nature of the tier system, particularly how as you go up in increasingly important levels, you sample size obviously decreases drastically and allows for greater variance when it really matters... essentially you can have a great run at Tier One and even Tier Two, and say you're down to 3 $75 tokens that after originally buying in to 20 Tier One SNG's. Cash in all 3 and your ROI will be off the charts, but cash in zero... and you're in the red big time my friend. And yes, I speak from experience. All those overpairs getting cracked by underpairs, runner-runner straights and flushes knocking you out, etc. All of that... happening when you really need it not to. That's what can really suck about the tiers.
Anywho, it looks like Scott at Ace Filled Dreams is going to give it a shot, so I thought I'd just revisit some of my thoughts on the matter, though I pretty much just summed them up above. I'll be honest though, seeing his post does kind of make me want to give it another shot sometime. Not now though... I'd much prefer going for a final table cash in a $24+2 MTT. But here's what I used to be all about:
Trying out the Tiers on FTP (HA)
Tearing Up Tier One
Tier One SNG Strategy Walkthrough (HH)
Time for a Tier Rant
Predicting ROI in Step SNG's
Crazy Tier Two Bubble Hand (HA)
$24+2 Tier Two SNG Strategy (HH) (forgot to add first time)
Tier Three Bubble Bust'n (HA)
OTHER THINGS
1) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - if you haven't already heard of or seen this show, I would highly recommend looking into it. My friend brought the DVD's from the first 2 seasons over on Sunday and I have the first 5 episodes to thank for getting me out of my mild downswing depression... just hilarious stuff if you like inappropriate humor.
2) Duplicate Poker - I forgot to mention that about a week or two ago I finally downloaded this thing and tried playing it. Not sure how many of you are familiar with it, but I really wish I wasn't. It was terrible. Now granted I didn't take much time to fully understand the concept and get acquainted with the software, but I really can't see myself ever having the patience to do so. It was just not an enjoyable... gaming experience? If you want to call it that. I don't give a crap if it's the only form of online poker legal in the U.S... cause really... it's just not poker.
3) Sloppy Deuce #2 - sign up now to slop it up this Sunday again. And stay tuned for a potentially fun announcement concerning a new TPTM promotion.
That's all I got for now. I'm spent. Best of luck to ya. - B
SLOPPY DEUCE #1 RESULTS
The first Sloppy Deuce tournament in TPTM history managed to scrape together a small field of players... basically a few of my buds who also had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon. Yours truly managed to take it down, which was probably the highlight of my weekend, as sad as that may seem. The final finishes were as follows:
1st - MrBo1011 ($8)
2nd - trainofbutter
3rd - jayman2117
4th - craigulator19
My man Criggles has been running pretty hot since he got back into playing online, and he came out aggressive, picking up a lot of pots before the flop and taking an early lead. I managed to even things out with a little KK trap where I limped in and hit a set, with a QJ that hit top two for the BB special, and then took him out with pocket 10's when he lead out into me with K7 that hit top pair on a 7-high flop after calling my button raise.
Jay managed a 3rd place finish even after apparently not showing up... although you never know with Jay since he's a terrible poker player... which ironically makes him extremely dangerous... plus he did actually manage to win one hand. He couldn't stay in the game though when he was all-in in the SB and I took him out with 34 against his dominating A4.
Then there was the trainofbutter, who just hadn't gotten anything going the whole time and was pretty much out of it. He did manage to scrap back just a little though, with a magnificent river suckout - ATs against his A6o that spiked the river 6. But then things headed downhill again until he made a perfectly reasonable push into my flopped flush. Here's the final hand:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 40/80 Blinds, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BB: 560
Hero (SB): 5,440
Pre-Flop: (120) 9d 8d dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero calls 40, BB checks
Flop: (160) 7d Qd 5d (2 Players)
BB bets 480 and is All-In, Hero calls 480
Turn: (1,120) 4c (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (1,120) Ks (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 1,120 Pot
BB showed Qh 6d (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-560 NET)
Hero showed 9d 8d (a flush, Queen high) and WON 1,120 (+560 NET)
GG gents. Hope to see you all back next Sunday, as well as some newcomers hopefully.
WEEKEND SNG MADNESS
Moving on to the rest of this weekend... ugh... where to begin. Basically it all sucked. It started with my Aces getting cracked by 65o after I raised about 234876234xBB before the flop in a $5 90-seater, then something crappy happened in a $10 SNG, can't remember what at this point. Then I made the money in a $5 90-seater, but busted in 13th after making an unfortunate resteal attempt with a mediocre suited Ace (should have realized my fold equity was not as good as I thought... and that my opponent had AA). And then things got really fun when I went another 9 $10 SNG's over Friday and Saturday and only managed to cash in 2... and both 3rd places at that. It was just a terrible run... probably my worst to date. In 2 spots I got down a bit early, losing about 1/3rd of my stack with AQ hands... once to a very passive AK, and once to K9 (shudder). Then I just couldn't catch a break. I was 0/4 in bubble coinflips, and also managed to lose AK to AJ that called all-in on a gutshot aaaaaaaaaaaaaand hit, of course... then QQ against AQ that put his chips in on a J-high flop and of course managed to turn the Ace.
Understandably, it was a sick weekend... a fairly cataclysmal downswing if I do say so myself. Of course I did start out at the $10 SNG's with a ridiculous hot streak (7 cashes out of 8, 5 of them wins), so now my stats actually seem a bit more normal, with a 33% ROI. Still not a significant sample size of only 35, but it's a start.
So from here I think I'm going to take a break from the $10 SNG's and try to play a few $5 90-seaters. I've had really good results from those thus far, and I even donked around in the $3 KO tourney the other night and scraped out an 8th place finish in that... not a big cash though, particularly considering that I only had 1 KO. For now though, I just need a little breather. It's nice to know that I'm not that distraught over the whole cold streak, while at the same time I'm not completely pessimistic about my luck and chances of winning and don't do the "ohhh, looks like another coinflip situation, I'll probably lose this one too" kind of thing. I'm in a good place where it is what it is, I can't do anything about it but focus on the next game or next hand, and ultimately... it's just money. In the big picture of things, I'm still overall very much in the black from when I started tracking my bankroll, but I'm also just in one giant freeroll. I've still yet to deposit a dime of my own money, and am grinding away with the original freeroll winnings and "free $50" offers on Party Poker (what Poker?) from years ago. So yeah this weekend sucked, but all-in-all, life is very good!
WTF HAND OF THE EON
With all the craptastic hands going down for me this weekend, there were probably a good 3-dozen or so hands that I felt could have been posted as "WTF" hands of the (insert measurement of time here). This hand however, from one of the biggest donks I have seen around EVER, clearly takes the cake. Fortunately I was not involved in the hand, for had it been my Aces that were being cracked, I probably would have ground my keyboard into a fine powder (though I also would have kicked myself for 3-betting... yes 3-betting... with Aces???)
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 20/40 Blinds, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: 1,240
BTN: 2,420
SB: 1,375
BB: 1,680
UTG: 2,150
UTG+1: 1,910
MP1: 670
Hero (MP2): 2,055
Pre-Flop: (60) 8c 5d dealt to Hero (MP2)
UTG raises to 80, UTG+1 raises to 120, MP1 calls 120, 2 folds, BTN calls 120, 2 folds, UTG calls 40
Flop: (540) 9h 3s Js (4 Players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 bets 540, MP1 folds, BTN calls 540, UTG folds
Turn: (1,620) Tc (2 Players)
UTG+1 bets 1,250 and is All-In, BTN calls 1,250
River: (4,120) Kc (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 4,120 Pot
BTN showed 8d 7d (a straight, Jack high) and WON 4,120 (+2,210 NET)
UTG+1 showed As Ah (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-1,910 NET)
REVISITING FULL TILT'S TIER SNG'S
Some of you may remember back in March I had a little experiment with the Tier SNG's on Full Tilt... which unfortunately didn't end the way I had hoped and made me realize the displeasure that can come with the nature of the tier system, particularly how as you go up in increasingly important levels, you sample size obviously decreases drastically and allows for greater variance when it really matters... essentially you can have a great run at Tier One and even Tier Two, and say you're down to 3 $75 tokens that after originally buying in to 20 Tier One SNG's. Cash in all 3 and your ROI will be off the charts, but cash in zero... and you're in the red big time my friend. And yes, I speak from experience. All those overpairs getting cracked by underpairs, runner-runner straights and flushes knocking you out, etc. All of that... happening when you really need it not to. That's what can really suck about the tiers.
Anywho, it looks like Scott at Ace Filled Dreams is going to give it a shot, so I thought I'd just revisit some of my thoughts on the matter, though I pretty much just summed them up above. I'll be honest though, seeing his post does kind of make me want to give it another shot sometime. Not now though... I'd much prefer going for a final table cash in a $24+2 MTT. But here's what I used to be all about:
Trying out the Tiers on FTP (HA)
Tearing Up Tier One
Tier One SNG Strategy Walkthrough (HH)
Time for a Tier Rant
Predicting ROI in Step SNG's
Crazy Tier Two Bubble Hand (HA)
$24+2 Tier Two SNG Strategy (HH) (forgot to add first time)
Tier Three Bubble Bust'n (HA)
OTHER THINGS
1) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - if you haven't already heard of or seen this show, I would highly recommend looking into it. My friend brought the DVD's from the first 2 seasons over on Sunday and I have the first 5 episodes to thank for getting me out of my mild downswing depression... just hilarious stuff if you like inappropriate humor.
2) Duplicate Poker - I forgot to mention that about a week or two ago I finally downloaded this thing and tried playing it. Not sure how many of you are familiar with it, but I really wish I wasn't. It was terrible. Now granted I didn't take much time to fully understand the concept and get acquainted with the software, but I really can't see myself ever having the patience to do so. It was just not an enjoyable... gaming experience? If you want to call it that. I don't give a crap if it's the only form of online poker legal in the U.S... cause really... it's just not poker.
3) Sloppy Deuce #2 - sign up now to slop it up this Sunday again. And stay tuned for a potentially fun announcement concerning a new TPTM promotion.
That's all I got for now. I'm spent. Best of luck to ya. - B
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The Deuce Cometh!
I'm in the middle of getting my ass handed to me in FTP's SNG Madness, but thought I'd take a minute to remind everyone about the first ever TPTM private tournament tomorrow. Here's the information again in case you're incapable of reading it on the giant banner above...
The Sloppy Deuce
Sunday @ 14:00 EST on Full Tilt Poker
$2+.50 NL Hold'em
go to Tournaments, click the Private tab, and scroll down to the respective buy-in and time.
And remember, if you don't already have a FTP account, you can download it and sign up for one here, then email me your player name and I'll drop $10 into your account to start playing with.
Alright, time to go grab lunch and then get back to the neverending suckouts. It all started when I got my Aces cracked by 65o in an MTT, and since then it's been an ugly weekend. Plus, I don't know what it was but all the $10 SNG's on Full Tilt were packed with nits last night. In the one game we seriously went 6 levels without one knockout. What do you do when it's still 8-9 handed, the blinds are at 60/120 and you're sitting cold-decked with around 1,200 chips or so? So far the answer has been you find a hand like AK or JJ, push it in, find yourself in a coinflip situation and, of course, lose 100% of them. Ah well, so it goes.
Hope you're all having better luck than I am.
The Sloppy Deuce
Sunday @ 14:00 EST on Full Tilt Poker
$2+.50 NL Hold'em
go to Tournaments, click the Private tab, and scroll down to the respective buy-in and time.
And remember, if you don't already have a FTP account, you can download it and sign up for one here, then email me your player name and I'll drop $10 into your account to start playing with.
Alright, time to go grab lunch and then get back to the neverending suckouts. It all started when I got my Aces cracked by 65o in an MTT, and since then it's been an ugly weekend. Plus, I don't know what it was but all the $10 SNG's on Full Tilt were packed with nits last night. In the one game we seriously went 6 levels without one knockout. What do you do when it's still 8-9 handed, the blinds are at 60/120 and you're sitting cold-decked with around 1,200 chips or so? So far the answer has been you find a hand like AK or JJ, push it in, find yourself in a coinflip situation and, of course, lose 100% of them. Ah well, so it goes.
Hope you're all having better luck than I am.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Beautiful Hand of the Week / Other Things
How's this for a bubble sweat:
Full Tilt Poker, $5 + $0.50 NL Hold'em Sit n' Go, 80/160 Blinds, 4 PlayersLeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): 4,555
UTG: 4,550
BTN: 3,635
SB: 760
Pre-Flop: (240) Kh Kc dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG raises to 480, BTN folds, Hero raises to 4,555 and is All-In, UTG calls 4,070 and is All-In
Flop: (9,180) 9d Jc 8d (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: (9,180) 4c (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (9,180) Kd (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 9,180 Pot
Hero showed Kh Kc (three of a kind, Kings) and WON 9,180 (+4,630 NET)
UTG showed As Td (Ace King high) and LOST (-4,550 NET)
How many times are your Kings going to be in a near-coinflip after dodging an Ace on the flop? I wasn't exactly looking for a call here with the SB being close to going out, and I'm not quite sure what the UTG player was thinking calling with ATo. It's always a sweat when you see that Ace though, and then to add in the open-ended straight draw. Hey zeus that makes my nuts sweat (kind of like Kimberly Lansing does... if I were a prepubescent boy, I would totally be discovering myself right now).
THE JOURNEY SO FAR:
In other news, July has come to an end, and though I didn't play much poker during the 2nd half of the month, I managed to have another solid return. I'm going to go ahead and post my monthly stats for the past 11 months, so you can all see just how pathetic of a grinder I am and just how little I actually play (spending time ranting on here doesn't help). I've been keeping track since last September, though I started a bit before then with $200 and the original intention of multi-tabling limit games... the real grind. Found that to be a maddening experience, so I got in to NL SNG's and MTT's and never really looked back, and so far I've only had one small month in the red. Anyways, here's my crappy homemade Poker Tracker knockoff spreadsheet:
The goal for August is to get over $1,000, preferably earlier in the month before work starts up - I'm going to be teaching high school math for the first year and we go back in a few weeks. Gotta get used to waking up at 5:00 in the morning again (sigh). But yeah, I figure I'll be playing a lot less during the school year (seeing as how I'll be making a lot more through teaching I should probably focus on that, and plus kids are the future and blah blah blah all that crap etc... just kidding, I really am serious about teaching and love my real job... seriously) but the good thing about teaching is the 2 months of summer vacation, which could be prime poker playing time... possibly even with an eventual trip to Vegas for the WSOP. For now though I'm just going to keep scraping away at the microstakes. Next step is to hit around $1,200 and move up to the $20 SNG's, and maybe a mix of $10-$24 MTT's. Right now the one thing I really need to work on is just to play more. I plan on starting that initiative later today with Full Tilt's Sit-N-Go Madness thing going on, but we'll see how much more time I leak out working on this post.
CONGRESSMEN (AND A CONGRESS-LADY) ATTACKING ONLINE POKER AGAIN:
This crap just keeps pissing me off more and more. Seems that the already-lame UIGEA isn't doing enough for some self-righteous representatives of themselves, who are disregarding all of the other ills in our nation right now to go after good ol' online poker. Get disgusted for yourself here: http://wickedchopspoker.blogs.com/my_weblog/2008/07/four-republican.html#more
All of this conjures up memories of an old article I wrote around the time that UIGEA was being put into place. It was supposed to be a two-part piece - the first dealing with the nature of poker (i.e. skill vs. luck, is it gambling?, etc.), and the second concerning morality and social perceptions of the game and it's place in society. But yeah... never really got to the second part. I'll leave you with the link for the first part though... and a little excerpt:
"Poker, we can say, is not pure gambling. Poker does involve acts of gambling, and as such the ability to correctly decipher and analyze the risks of certain situations is an essential tool of players who seek to minimize the amount of gambling involved. The degree to which chance and skill come into play is not easily quantifiable, nonetheless it is quite evident that both are active components of the game and that the latter of the two is a primary determinant of how the player fares in the long run."
... from Of Math and Mathematicians: A Poker Paradox (Part I)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
WSOP Event 2 on ESPN
Just finished watching Grant Hinkle take down the $1,500 NL Hold'em Event 2 of the 2008 WSOP, and while doing so I came up with a little list...
Things not to do should I ever make it to a televised final table:
1) Misread my hole cards.
2) Upon doing #1 and making an awful play, tell everyone repeatedly what a horrible mistake I made and how incredibly nervous I am.
3) Act like a socially awkward donk.
4) Act like a cocky little bitch.
5) Fold pocket Aces.
6) Tell Norman Chad to announce that my previous job was in pizza deliveries.
7) Bring an embarrassing mother.
I think that's all I got. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to applying Degree antiperspirant, eating Planters peanuts, and getting drunk on Miller Lite. I can't explain why... I just have this unexplainable urge...
Things not to do should I ever make it to a televised final table:
1) Misread my hole cards.
2) Upon doing #1 and making an awful play, tell everyone repeatedly what a horrible mistake I made and how incredibly nervous I am.
3) Act like a socially awkward donk.
4) Act like a cocky little bitch.
5) Fold pocket Aces.
6) Tell Norman Chad to announce that my previous job was in pizza deliveries.
7) Bring an embarrassing mother.
I think that's all I got. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to applying Degree antiperspirant, eating Planters peanuts, and getting drunk on Miller Lite. I can't explain why... I just have this unexplainable urge...
Monday, July 28, 2008
New Format, The Sloppy Deuce, and Free Money
So I spent the day making a few changes around here. You may notice a little bit of redecoration that took place, primarily some color scheme changes. I don't know what I was thinking the first time around, and that weird green-brown background was starting to get to me. I finally figured out how to change it in the template and decided to change a few other things as well. After playing around with it for a little while, and doing a bit of Photoshopping, I settled on what you see now. Feel free to let me know what you think.
Second order of business. I heard back from Full Tilt Poker support and the weekly TPTM tournament is now up and running... officially titled The Sloppy Deuce. I did some more Photoshopping and put a banner together at the top... hopefully you didn't miss that. The one drawback of the private tournament deal so far is the entry fee. Normally a $2 SNG or MTT carries a 25-cent fee, but it's apparently double that for private tournaments. Kind of reminds me of Party Poker (Party what? Who Poker?). Nevertheless, it's now on like Donkey Kong. I'm also going to try to start offering additional bonuses for weekly winners, and more private tournaments with bigger buy-ins will most likely follow. All results will be posted here as well.
Finally, getting back to those additional bonuses, I'm now offering a free $10 deposit for any new Full Tilt Poker sign-ups. Just follow the steps in the upper right-hand corner of the main page and the money is all yours... hopefully to play in some TPTM tournaments with... that's the whole thought behind it. So if you want to play, but don't already have an FTP account, sign up through me (remember the IMOPOKER bonus code), shoot me an email with your player name, and I'll shoot you the $10 as quick as possible.
Coming Soon - TPTM 2.0
Over the next few days I'm going to be doing some reformatting of the blog... mainly just some stylistic changes, but also trying to implement a few new features. At the top of the list is the addition of some private TPTM tournaments... which I'm waiting to get verification from Full Tilt on. I'm going to start with a small one, and then hopefully add another option or two, and I had Sunday afternoons in mind as the best time to host them. Stay tuned for more info on that.
Also, I'd like to make note of two new blogs that I've been reading on a semi-daily basis and have thus added to the list, both of which are of high quality. The first one is Ace Filled Dreams, a general individual blog full of interesting content, both poker and a little non-poker related. The second is Melted Felt, a poker satire site with lots of good humor. Definitely a fun read when you need a break from serious poker content.
So check those out, and stay tuned for some big changes around here. Okay, that's an exaggeration... some minor and temporarily exciting changes... that's more like it.
Also, I'd like to make note of two new blogs that I've been reading on a semi-daily basis and have thus added to the list, both of which are of high quality. The first one is Ace Filled Dreams, a general individual blog full of interesting content, both poker and a little non-poker related. The second is Melted Felt, a poker satire site with lots of good humor. Definitely a fun read when you need a break from serious poker content.
So check those out, and stay tuned for some big changes around here. Okay, that's an exaggeration... some minor and temporarily exciting changes... that's more like it.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Beautiful Hand of the Week
I should probably be busy studying right now, seeing as how I'm taking two teaching certification exams tomorrow - both in social studies, one on content knowledge and one for pedagogy. The content test is 130 questions on basically everything I learned in social science courses from 1st grade through college... U.S. history, world history, economics, geography, psychology, sociology, political science, etc. I've been brushing up a little bit, but it just seems like the kind of thing where I'm either going to know it or I won't. I'm fairly confident that 1) my retention of all things social studies is above average (just to give you an idea - September 1st, 1939, Germany invades Poland! Damn! That's just a little sample from my gigantic noggin!), and 2) that the standard to be considered "highly qualified" is probably around a pathetic 50%... tops. Basically a passing score on the test to become a teacher would be a failing grade in any normal classroom. Some fun food for thought.
Anyways, so I basically just accepted that I'm as prepared as I can be for tomorrow, and I decided to play a game or two this afternoon. Occasionally I like to drop down in levels and just experiment with different styles of play or dick around in general. This specific hand was kind of a combination of both, but it definitely made me feel smart enough to teach kids about properly slowplaying Aces (not that I would ever devote classroom time to such a topic... honest).
Just to set the scene a little... 2 hands earlier I had reraised the villain here on the button. With blinds at 40/80, he had opened it from the cutoff to 280, I popped it to 600 rather than just flat calling with my AKo, and he thought a bit and folded. Probably smelled to him like I was looking for a call with a big pair. Then came this beauty...
Full Tilt Poker, $2 + $0.25 NL Hold'em Sit n' Go, 40/80 Blinds, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: 2,925
Hero (MP): 3,560
CO: 1,405
BTN: 1,465
SB: 1,680
BB: 2,465
Pre-Flop: (120) Ad Ac dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG raises to 320, Hero calls 320, 4 folds
Flop: (760) 5s Ah 8d (2 Players)
UTG bets 760, Hero calls 760
Turn: (2,280) Td (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets 400, UTG raises to 800, Hero raises to 2,480 and is All-In, UTG calls 1,045 and is All-In
River: (5,970) Qh (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 5,970 Pot
UTG showed Ts As (two pair, Aces and Tens) and LOST (-2,925 NET)
Hero showed Ad Ac (three of a kind, Aces) and WON 5,970 (+3,045 NET)
In a way I really got lucky to bust the guy like that, given what he had. A reraise before the flop probably wouldn't have gotten much more out of him, unless he was a bit peeved at me and tried to push back. Before the flop I put him on TT-KK, and AQ-AK... not really expecting him to play such a weak Ace in early position like that. But the table had been fairly passive so I guess he was taking a worthy shot at it. His raise was big enough that I felt safe just flat calling and not getting too many more players in the pot, and the key was that it gave him the obligation of leading on the flop, which given his aggression I was confident he would do.
The only worry I had on the flop was that it was going to kill my action. The Ace made my hand a virtual lock, but also made it less likely that he had an Ace. His pot bet looked more like a "give me this pot now" kind of continuation bet than an AK or even AQ value bet. I decided to continue my charade and just call, as if he didn't have an Ace a raise would've surely pushed him out.
Little did I know how beautiful the turn was for me. When he thought for a bit and checked to me, I figured he was either willing to give up his JJ, QQ, or KK at this point, or that he had TT and just nailed what he thought was a made hand. Either way, I wanted to keep him in this pot, so I bet real small to keep him around in the case that he did miss. No time to worry about drawing hands like KQ, KJ, QJ, or two diamonds... much less likely here and I'm surely not going to fold this hand no matter the river card. A small bet also gives a daring and aggressive player an opportunity to make a move for all or most of their chips, in which case the only work I would then have to do is to click the call button.
So after I bet 400, I get what I want. He check-min-raises me. Now I'm thinking TT is quite likely. Pocket 8's would not have bet so much on the flop, nor would 5's, and I don't think he'd be coming in for a raise with either as he did. Whatever he has though, he's telling me that he's quite willing to go to the felt right now. I go ahead and drop the bad news on him, he makes a committed, and probably confident, call, and proceeds to type "FYF" into the chatbox from the peanut gallery on his way out (I can definitely guess what the first two letters stand for, and I don't think it's "Fantastic Yogurt"). So yeah, for once I slowplayed Aces and managed to get just the board cards and opponent I was looking for. See... it can be done. And that, my friends, is the beautiful hand of the week. I'm going to try to do these every week or so now.
For now though, time to hit the hay. First test is at 7:30 tomorrow half an hour away, so I'll be waking up with the sunrise. Goodnight and good luck ya'll.
Anyways, so I basically just accepted that I'm as prepared as I can be for tomorrow, and I decided to play a game or two this afternoon. Occasionally I like to drop down in levels and just experiment with different styles of play or dick around in general. This specific hand was kind of a combination of both, but it definitely made me feel smart enough to teach kids about properly slowplaying Aces (not that I would ever devote classroom time to such a topic... honest).
Just to set the scene a little... 2 hands earlier I had reraised the villain here on the button. With blinds at 40/80, he had opened it from the cutoff to 280, I popped it to 600 rather than just flat calling with my AKo, and he thought a bit and folded. Probably smelled to him like I was looking for a call with a big pair. Then came this beauty...
Full Tilt Poker, $2 + $0.25 NL Hold'em Sit n' Go, 40/80 Blinds, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: 2,925
Hero (MP): 3,560
CO: 1,405
BTN: 1,465
SB: 1,680
BB: 2,465
Pre-Flop: (120) Ad Ac dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG raises to 320, Hero calls 320, 4 folds
Flop: (760) 5s Ah 8d (2 Players)
UTG bets 760, Hero calls 760
Turn: (2,280) Td (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets 400, UTG raises to 800, Hero raises to 2,480 and is All-In, UTG calls 1,045 and is All-In
River: (5,970) Qh (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 5,970 Pot
UTG showed Ts As (two pair, Aces and Tens) and LOST (-2,925 NET)
Hero showed Ad Ac (three of a kind, Aces) and WON 5,970 (+3,045 NET)
In a way I really got lucky to bust the guy like that, given what he had. A reraise before the flop probably wouldn't have gotten much more out of him, unless he was a bit peeved at me and tried to push back. Before the flop I put him on TT-KK, and AQ-AK... not really expecting him to play such a weak Ace in early position like that. But the table had been fairly passive so I guess he was taking a worthy shot at it. His raise was big enough that I felt safe just flat calling and not getting too many more players in the pot, and the key was that it gave him the obligation of leading on the flop, which given his aggression I was confident he would do.
The only worry I had on the flop was that it was going to kill my action. The Ace made my hand a virtual lock, but also made it less likely that he had an Ace. His pot bet looked more like a "give me this pot now" kind of continuation bet than an AK or even AQ value bet. I decided to continue my charade and just call, as if he didn't have an Ace a raise would've surely pushed him out.
Little did I know how beautiful the turn was for me. When he thought for a bit and checked to me, I figured he was either willing to give up his JJ, QQ, or KK at this point, or that he had TT and just nailed what he thought was a made hand. Either way, I wanted to keep him in this pot, so I bet real small to keep him around in the case that he did miss. No time to worry about drawing hands like KQ, KJ, QJ, or two diamonds... much less likely here and I'm surely not going to fold this hand no matter the river card. A small bet also gives a daring and aggressive player an opportunity to make a move for all or most of their chips, in which case the only work I would then have to do is to click the call button.
So after I bet 400, I get what I want. He check-min-raises me. Now I'm thinking TT is quite likely. Pocket 8's would not have bet so much on the flop, nor would 5's, and I don't think he'd be coming in for a raise with either as he did. Whatever he has though, he's telling me that he's quite willing to go to the felt right now. I go ahead and drop the bad news on him, he makes a committed, and probably confident, call, and proceeds to type "FYF" into the chatbox from the peanut gallery on his way out (I can definitely guess what the first two letters stand for, and I don't think it's "Fantastic Yogurt"). So yeah, for once I slowplayed Aces and managed to get just the board cards and opponent I was looking for. See... it can be done. And that, my friends, is the beautiful hand of the week. I'm going to try to do these every week or so now.
For now though, time to hit the hay. First test is at 7:30 tomorrow half an hour away, so I'll be waking up with the sunrise. Goodnight and good luck ya'll.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Super Update Mega Post
Things have been a bit hectic as of late... not as much time for poker and/or poker posts. So I'm going to try to throw a bunch of newsworthy things into one giant post here.
Newsworthy thing #1: Played $10 SNG #25 last Friday and managed to tack on another win. It was quite a crazy one though, as I went from 6-handed short-stack to big stack in a hand or two, the first involving a triple-up with the button (AJo) and SB (QQ)... I was in the BB with KK and managed to dodge some bullets. Got KK twice later on, including the last hand, and really dodged some more bullets, once against AKs with a flush draw on the flop, and lastly against J9s with an open-ended straight and flush draw on the turn. Had some serious clutch river cards for once.
I know this is far from a significant sample size, but I figured I'd post some updated stats, including... for the first time ever on TPTM... A PICTURE!!!
... of a graph. Yeah... it's a line illustrating my $10 SNG profit. But it's a step in a new and exciting direction, eh? Check it out...
$10 SNG stats:
Total Games: 25
1st: 7
2nd: 2
3rd: 6
4th: 1
5th: 2
6th: 4
7th: 3
8th: 0
9th: 0
Cashes: 15/25
ITM%: 60%
Amount Invested: $250 + $25 (fees) = $275.00
Amount Returned: ($45 x 7) + ($27 x 2) + ($18 x 6) = $477.00
Profit: $477.00 - $275.00 = $202.00
ROI%: $202.00/$275.00 = 73.45%
Not a shabby start at all, though I realize the ROI will likely decrease and eventually level out. Just as long as the total profit continues to increase.
Newsworthy thing #2: ESPN coverage of the 2008 WSOP begins tonight at 8:00 PM. I forget which event they're airing first but it should be good. I mean... it beats 99% of everything else on TV right?
Newsworthy thing #3: I bought some new Copag cards the other day. They're the Black and Gold ones seen here: http://copagcards.com/products.php?categoryid=5. Haven't played with them yet but they definitely seem a lot nicer than the crappy ones I've been using.
Newsworthy thing #4: I hate Facebook. But even more I've found that I hate people that play Facebook poker and brag about their millions of Facebook dollars. Something needs to be done about this.
Speaking of hatred, one more thing I can't stand is people online who don't understand push/fold poker with low M's. For example, I'm blinding away in an MTT last night with a stack of about 1700 in the 120/240 level. With an M of less than 5 I'm pretty much towards the high end of the red zone, and seeing as how I'm at a passive table I go ahead and push AJs in middle position. Some obvious bracelet winner types "nice bet... way to get paid there." Okay? Funny thing is it loosened him up a little and soon after I crippled his stack and he busted out on the next hand :-)
Alright I think that's about it for now. Might go play a game or two and see if I can keep the roll in it's upward trajectory.
Best of luck ya'll. - B
Newsworthy thing #1: Played $10 SNG #25 last Friday and managed to tack on another win. It was quite a crazy one though, as I went from 6-handed short-stack to big stack in a hand or two, the first involving a triple-up with the button (AJo) and SB (QQ)... I was in the BB with KK and managed to dodge some bullets. Got KK twice later on, including the last hand, and really dodged some more bullets, once against AKs with a flush draw on the flop, and lastly against J9s with an open-ended straight and flush draw on the turn. Had some serious clutch river cards for once.
I know this is far from a significant sample size, but I figured I'd post some updated stats, including... for the first time ever on TPTM... A PICTURE!!!
... of a graph. Yeah... it's a line illustrating my $10 SNG profit. But it's a step in a new and exciting direction, eh? Check it out...
$10 SNG stats:
Total Games: 25
1st: 7
2nd: 2
3rd: 6
4th: 1
5th: 2
6th: 4
7th: 3
8th: 0
9th: 0
Cashes: 15/25
ITM%: 60%
Amount Invested: $250 + $25 (fees) = $275.00
Amount Returned: ($45 x 7) + ($27 x 2) + ($18 x 6) = $477.00
Profit: $477.00 - $275.00 = $202.00
ROI%: $202.00/$275.00 = 73.45%
Not a shabby start at all, though I realize the ROI will likely decrease and eventually level out. Just as long as the total profit continues to increase.
Newsworthy thing #2: ESPN coverage of the 2008 WSOP begins tonight at 8:00 PM. I forget which event they're airing first but it should be good. I mean... it beats 99% of everything else on TV right?
Newsworthy thing #3: I bought some new Copag cards the other day. They're the Black and Gold ones seen here: http://copagcards.com/products.php?categoryid=5. Haven't played with them yet but they definitely seem a lot nicer than the crappy ones I've been using.
Newsworthy thing #4: I hate Facebook. But even more I've found that I hate people that play Facebook poker and brag about their millions of Facebook dollars. Something needs to be done about this.
Speaking of hatred, one more thing I can't stand is people online who don't understand push/fold poker with low M's. For example, I'm blinding away in an MTT last night with a stack of about 1700 in the 120/240 level. With an M of less than 5 I'm pretty much towards the high end of the red zone, and seeing as how I'm at a passive table I go ahead and push AJs in middle position. Some obvious bracelet winner types "nice bet... way to get paid there." Okay? Funny thing is it loosened him up a little and soon after I crippled his stack and he busted out on the next hand :-)
Alright I think that's about it for now. Might go play a game or two and see if I can keep the roll in it's upward trajectory.
Best of luck ya'll. - B
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