tp's table talk

Andy Beal is a crazy man. This is the latest in a series of articles published in Card Player in an attempt to publicly come to terms on the format of the “biggest game in town” between Andy Beal and Doyle Brunson’s “syndicate”. It is simply mind-boggling to consider poker played at those kind of stakes. I have enough problems losing a couple hundred dollars in a session. I don’t know how I could sit there until I’ve won or lost eight million! Of course, I’d need to have my first million before I could consider that, so I better get cracking.

Last night was the latest WPBT and the third of the year. It was back to the traditional no limit hold’em at Pokerstars. Since one table is never enough, I decided to also enter the $5000 freeroll at Absolute Poker starting at the same time. Well, it wasn’t a complete freeroll as you needed to pay 10000 ARPs to enter, but it seemed like a good deal. I was also trying to take care of a personal project at the same time, so I managed to be fairly scatterbrained throughout.

I think this is the first blogger tournament that I’ve ever entered where I was not in the chip lead at some point in the tournament. Actually, that may no be quite true as I nearly doubled-up early when I someone went all-in against me with second pair to my top pair, but I didn’t check where that put me in the chip standings. I don’t remember the player’s name, but it was a generous contribution to my stack. I do know he/she was one of the first of the 109 players to bust out.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into the swing of things. My cards weren’t helping, but I played pretty weak, folding to virtually anyone who played back at me. While I never dropped below my starting stack after that early double up, eventually the blinds were making my stack look pretty feeble. And 200/400 blinds I was looking for a opportunity to get all my chips in and when I found AK0 in the big blinds, it seemed just such an opportunity. Unfortunately, I should have given it some though when Bill Rini was the one raising from early position. Had I turned my brain on for a few seconds I would have recalled that he had been playing mostly strong hands and an early position raise probably signalled. It definitely did, and his KK had me in rough shape. I picked up a gutshot draw on the flop, but got no help on the turn or river. I was out in 30th, which wasn’t a horrible finish, but I might have found a better place to get my money in. Still, it’s hard to get away from AK with only 6x the BB. I can only hope that the 30th place finishmight be enough to move me up on the WPBT leaderboard.

I ended up sweating JP for the next hour and a bit, hoping that a Canadian might be able to take the title. Alas, though he made the final table, he busted out in seventh when his TT fell to AA. Bad luck JP!

Fortunately I was still kicking in the Absolute tournament. We were down to about 40 of 209 players remaining with the blinds just slightly behind those in the Stars tournament. And with the extremely flat payout ($600 for first, $100 for 16-18th) there was a decent chance I could parlay my medium stack into a benjamin. Or in my case a borden and a couple macdonalds. In fact, I was pretty lucky to be in the tournament at all after doubling up with KK vs. AA when I lucked into a flush.

Unfortunately, my luck didn’t continue and I was forced to fold some big hands to pressure on some very scary flops. Eventually I was back to a short stack, something I was getting all too familiar with. We were down to 25 players and one of them was stalling on every hand, something that was very frustrating to a short stack looking to amass a few more chips before the blinds went up. Eventually I pushed my last T3800 with ATs in first position with the blinds at 500/1000. It’s folded around to the small blind, who goes into the tank. Actually, wait, he’s just stalling, again, so it’s just up to the big stack in the big blind who calls me down but makes me happy when he flips 75s. That is, of course, until a 7 hits on the flop. Just when I’m thinking that maybe it won’t be so bad to get to bed at a reasonable hour, a beautiful T hits on the river and doubles me up.

I play one more hand out of the big blind for a small point, but the next 2 orbits are pretty uneventful (and excruciatingly slow) until the 19th player finally busts out at another table and everyone is in the money. I’m happy, thinking we’ve finally seen the end of the stalling. Unfortunately I’m wrong and with blinds at 600/1200, the moron in the 2-seat tries to shuffle his way into 16th for an extra $25. A few hands later I have K4o in the big blind. It’s folded around and when the big stack (T75000) raises me all-in from the small blind, I figure, correctly, that my hand is best. I push my remaining T4000 hoping to double-up against his J7o. Unfortunately, the poker gods did not smile on me and delivered the crushing 7 on the river. Still, 18th place was still $100, which was better than I expected from my measly stack.

Was quite a fun night of tournament poker. It’s always fun to play in the blogger events, and really, you can never argue with winning money. I just wish I hadn’t been so preoccupied so that I could have chatted a bit more in the blogger event.

A friend led me towards the Red Hot Poker Tour a month or two back after discovering them running a poker tournament in his local bar. It’s a group that organizes free poker tournaments in bars across Toronto. There is no buy-in and there are no prizes. I have been meaning to make it out to a game for a while, but always found myself with other commitments. I’m running out of excuses though, as there is at least one event running every night of the week somewhere in town. And if you count all the events in nearby cities, the RHPT has 3-4 events a night.

But tonight was a special event. Daniel Negreanu was in town for a few days and was supposed to be appearing at the this evening’s tournament at the Madison downtown. Sign-up was supposed to begin at 6:00pm, but I rightly figured that I should get there early if I wanted a seat. Unfortunately, I was only able to get out of the office at 5pm and my 5:40 arrival left me too far back in line to get into the game. It was only a short time after 6:00, when I was maybe 10 people back from the sign-up table, that we were told that all the seats were filled. The tournament wouldn’t start until 7:00 and the room was packed. The friend who was going to come with me wasn’t able to make it, so, instead of waiting around on the off chance I might see something interesting or get a chance to talk to Daniel, I decided to head back home.

It was unfortunate as I was looking forward to seeing Daniel and maybe getting a chance to congratulate him on his success and compliment him on his Card Player articles, which are usually the first I read with each issue. I was also hoping I might run into Brent “Stacks”, one of the hometown boys behind Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio. I’d contacted both he and “Cinci” Sean about Daniel’s appearance after they mentioned it on their podcast this weekend and Brent said he might show up. Unfortunately, I have no idea what Stacks looks like, so I wasn’t going to hang around without the benefit of a poker game to introduce myself to people. And lastly, I discovered that one of the regulars from my own poker game used to room with Devin Armstrong back in university and actually played in the same band with him for a time. Devin writes for Canadian Poker Player and is frequent poster at Canada’s Poker Forum. My friend mentioned that Devin is usually at the RHPT events and suggest I say hello. At least I would have been able to recognize from his byline picture.

But I will have to get out to one of these events soon. From what I saw, it looks pretty well organized and pretty popular. I could use the live game practice even if there is nothing on the line. And I suppose it’s my responsibility as a blogger to sample the poker scene in my city, as limited as it may be.

The night finally arrived. For the first time ever, a WPBT event that scheduled that was not NLHE. At 9:00pm last night, 93 players began a strange journey into the world of HORSE (a mixed games with alternating rounds of Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, Seven-Card Stud and Eight or Better) at Full Tilt Poker.

And all I can say is, we need to do this again, soon. I’m no expert on any of the games that make up HORSE, but I have played them all and read some about them. And apparently this small amount of knowledge can provide a huge edge against the typical WPBT player. I kept losing large chunks of my stack, but managed to build it back up during the ORSE rounds.

Unfortunately, most of my memorable hands were bad beats. The first was with 68/2 in Razz. I bet it the whole way down and was called by fhwrdh who at the end was drawing to a 9. Of course, after adding an A to my hand on 4th street, I managed to pair up with each of the last three cards. Sure, when I paired the 2 on fifth street, I can see a loose call, but when I catch an 8 on 6th, I can’t fathom a call with a made 10 and a draw to a 9. But who am I to criticize, I lost the hand and a few thousand in chips.

The other big loss was pretty standard, a made hand that lost out to a flush on the river. But it left me in precarious chip position.

Of course, this biggest frustration of the tournament was a particularly poor play on my part, at the final table no less. I was playing AKQ4 double suited pretty strongly in O/8 and after a flop of 9Tx, a beautiful J came on the river, giving me the nut straight and the nut flush draw. Unless the board paired, my hand was a lock. Except, I didn’t see that, and only called the turn bet thinking I needed an AKQ or heart to make my hand. Even worse, when the river came an offsuit three, I checked along with my opponent. I guess I should be happy he didn’t bet, as it’s entirely possible I would have folded. Of course, looking back it is entirely possible that he wouldn’t have called any further bets with a board like that, but it was still a stupid, stupid mistake. In my defense (slim as it is), I was working on my other machine throughout the tournament. Still, I should be able to read the nuts at all times and really should notice when they are in my hand.

This actually put me in decent chip position, with T17000 with other stacks ranging from T5000 to T30000. Not optimal, but at least it was something to work with. Or it would have been had the deck not gone suddenly cold on me. With the rampant calling I’d seen throughout the tournament and the fact that the big stacks at the table were displaying a bullying mood, I had to bid my time to try to find at least marginal hands before making a move. Of course, this was all necessitated by the fact it was a limit tournament and could push a hand only so hard.

After blinds (and bring-ins) stripped me down to T10000, I decided to re-raise with AQ/2 against the XX/3 that completed my bring-in. The game was seven card stud and I figured my opponent for a pair. I’d seen play those small pairs all the way through the hand, so I figured I was getting reasonable value for my money, and frankly, my patience had given out. With a J for me and a 2 for him on 4th street, I got the rest of my money in. He had hidden nines and though it was a higher pair than I expected, I still had three overcards and a 3-card flush. Unfortunately, I didn’t get there and his unimproved nines took me out of the tournament in fifth place. Good read, questionable bet, but the antes were eating me alive and I was going to need to get some chips to have any chance at the first place money.

The tournament was a lot of fun though, and I have to say I really like the Full Tilt software. I had the chance to chat with some poker bloggers and play a little HORSE, which is quickly becoming my poker preference. My thanks to Iggy for setting up the tournament, and Felicia, who was the impetus for the whole thing.

Friday night (last Friday…boy, this has been sitting in the queue for a while)was again my bi-weekly. I thought I’ve been cold-decked in the past in these tournaments, but the cards were absolutely frigid this night. I managed to pull a few steals over to keep my stack stable as the tournament progressed, but as other people accumulated chips, my chances were looking worse and worse. In fact, the only two hands I went to showdown with were behind the whole way and won on the river. And one of those was runner-runner straight. Fortunately, they were both short stacks (which was why I was involved) and I collected their bounties. When we merged down to one table, my fortunes started to turn somewhat. I pushed when I had the goods and thankfully the hands held up. When it got down to heads-up a fortuitous pair of pocket kings sealed the deal and I walked away with first place again. A satisfying victory, but there are still a few problems with my game.

The one thing I really need to work on is my poker face. I used to be fairly random in my mannerisms while playing cards so I never particularly worried about remaining overly stoic. I would occasionally start shaking when bluffing, but I’d also be shaking when holding a monster. But more and more often now I feel that I am betraying not too subtle clues about my hand whenever my opponent goes into the tank. My eyes are constantly darting all over the place. They flick from player to felt to TV to … well, just about anything in the room. And if he takes long enough to call, I will inevitably start with the shakes. Does anyone have any secrets to remaining stoic at the table? I’ll be trying to get more live play in so I can work on this to avoid embarrassing myself more than I need to at the WPBT event, but.

Played a good chunk over poker at Party over the rest of the weekend trying to work off the BONUSFEB $200 bonus (yes, I should probably mention these things before they expire). A combination of spectacularly bad play combined with a few unfortunate beats led to a brutalizing of my bankroll. Well, with the two hundred bucks I ended up for the weekend and even slightly up over the first session I played towards the bonus, but I still ended up being down $20 from my deposit when all was said and done. Quite a bit of wasted time. I think maybe I should start making only partial deposits on this large 1-week bonuses, as it will help to make me feel a little less forced into playing.

In community news, I’m finally adding Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio to the links on the right. It’s a weekly podcast on poker put together by a group of players here in Toronto. It’s great stuff and they’ve even got PokerProf contributing on a regular segment.
Also, there is a HORSE WPBT tournament tentatively scheduled for this Sunday on Full Tilt Poker. I haven’t financed my FTP account yet, but I am planning to play in this tournament. I’ve been playing a lot of HORSE in my home games and been doing some reading on the various disciplines. I love getting a change of pace in game selection and though I don’t expect to do very well in the tournament, it is going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

At Pauly’s urging (see comments in the last post) I signed up for the live WPBT event taking place in Vegas on the first Saturday in June. Ok, it didn’t take much arm twisting , but I am on the list for the tourney and my flight is booked. If I counted the names correctly in the post CJ made at the WPBT site and I’m sitting as the fiftieth name on the list, which makes me a little bit nervous, particularly since I wasn’t a good little boy and RSVPed via comment instead of email like he asked. The list is in no particular order, but I’d really hate to go all the way to Vegas and not get a chance to play in the tourney. I probably should have signed up right away and then worried about getting the time off work and finding a reasonable flight, but I’ve been organized too many teams and events in the past and know how much of a pain these types of things can be. Hopefully it all works out and I’ll be able to donate some money to my fellow bloggers before contributing it to random strangers over the rest of the weekend.

Unfortunately, it is looking very promising on the room front. I’d been hoping that the tournament would attract a decent room rate, as the one at Sam’s Town did, but that does not appear to be forthcoming. And since the WSOP is starting that same weekend, I think it may be safer to nail down a room sooner rather than later. If anyone has any suggestions for decent rooms or decent rates (I’m sharing with a buddy) please let me know. Where is everyone else staying? Felicia had some candidates for me, but the better informed I am, the better I’ll feel.

Well, my poker playing frequency has been up, but that hasn’t really translated to more weblog entries. But I haven’t abandoned this thing altogether.

First of all, Iggy and hdouble have finally released the secret project they have been working on for the past several months. Their Poker Tracker Guide has been released into the world. At $20, it’s worth it for the auto-rate formulas alone. I was very happy to see that I came up rated as a “Good Player”. Even if in just one session, I found the auto-rate notes to be very handy and while I don’t know if I’ve made the $20 back off the information yet, it won’t be long before I do. And the guide contains some other useful info as well, including a PlayerView.net config file that will be nice once I get it working. Kudos to both of you for a job well done.

But despite that extra edge and the ten pocket aces I was dealt last night (including two that turned into quad aces), I still managed to drop some change at the new pot-limit tables at Party. (I’d have to go back and check PokerTracker for the exact number, but if it wasn’t ten, it was very close) I guess I was thrown by the changes in the way the PL and NL tables work in the Party Skins. Everything was normal Sunday, but when I logged on last night and started up a couple 25PL tables, I noticed that the antes weren’t quite as big as I was used to. It seems that they’ve changed the buy-ins to 100x the BB instead of the 50x they had before. This means the .50 big blind I was used to was now at the 50PL tables. It also appeared that the 25PL tables did not count towards raked hand requirements. So, I moved up, even though a lot of the fish stayed at the $25 tables to get their NL/PL fix at the lowest possible stakes. I was doing not too badly, but lost a lot of money against some improbably starting hands against my TPTK. I would have finished up if it weren’t for a $60 pot I lost with pocket aces when my opponent spiked a queen to join his Hilton sisters on the turn. Damn you Pauly!

I’m disappointed that I didn’t do more with the deck hitting me in the face like it was, but I have to say that I was still mentally adjusting to playing from a bigger stack. It had mostly settled by the end of the night so I am looking forward to opportunities to extract even more money from the fish in the future. And I even have them conveniently labelled now with PokerTracker’s auto-rate feature. Thanks Iggy and hdouble.

In other news, the next live WPBT event has been scheduled for June 4th at the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas. CJ from Up For Poker set it up. I’m considering attending and almost booked my flight more than once, but I am feeling a bit of a pretender with the scarcity of my posts lately.

Unfortunately there was no poker in the Carribean, which was made even more frustrating by the people we met at the casino that I know would have been sitting at the poker table. Would have been a very loose table, but very profitable with a little patience. Alas, it was not to be.

This Friday was the usual home tourney, but I had a little trouble getting going. Getting bad cards and playing pretty loosely. And worse of all, I’m giving out tells like it’s going out of style, I just can’t control myself. But somehow I manage to hold on to the later stages. Down to 4 with 2 big stacks, 2 small stacks, with mine the smallest of all. Suddenly the two big stacks go to war and one is decimated when trip aces fall to quad 2s. Suddenly there are three short stacks. But I’m likely to be blinded off first. I find KJc and put in my remaining chips, now less than the big blind after the long hand between the two large stacks. It holds up. Now I’ve got over twice the big blind and push on the next hand when I find ATo. The big stack folds his small blind but the big blind calls his remaining T30 chips. A 9 on the flop and I’m back to being allin in the big blind on the next hand. I’m called by the third short stack and the other two fold, leaving me committing only half my stack to cover him. It’s my 74o versus his T8o. The flop is 8KK, leaving me drawing very, very thin. But the turn is a 6 and the river the improbably 5 to keep me from going all-in in the small blind. But when the remaining small stack pushes in (he has me covered, barely) I have to follow suit with presto. The big stack calls and they flip over KJ and KT. I’m feeling much better about my chances. Still not 50% to win, but more likely than either of the other two. Unfortunately a jack hits on the flop and the other short stack triples up. Of course, he’s at about a 7-1 chip disadvantage, so it’s not long before he’s eliminated as well. But considering that I figured my chances of making the money (top 3 paid) were pretty poor, I was happy to get away with something.

Also had a strange occurrance earlier in the week. I got a call from a host at Absolute Poker who set me up with some better than normal bonuses. Nothing ridiculous, but more than the typical reloads they offer and it was nice to get the personal touch. Very strange though, as I’ve never played all that much at Absolute. I guess they are serious about trying to compete with the big boys. They do have solid software though, so I suppose all they need is the numbers.

Despite running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to take care of some remaining errands before I depart for the sunny Dominican Republic, I was able to make it home for the WPBT event last night. With about five minutes to spare. In my first hand I found a pair of sixes in the big blind. I was still out of sorts from my rush to get back to my apartment, but when Helixx raised me from late position, I think I raised him right back. He called and though I forget the exact sequence of play, I folded under the continued pressure he put on me. I believed the sixes were good, but it just wasn’t worth losing any more money on. I would have my revenge later.

Play was pretty tight at the table, but I was looking up information about my vacation, so wasn’t paying quite enough attention to take full advantage. But I was slowly rebuilding all the chips I lost on that first hand. I was motoring right along when there was another late position raise from Helixx. But this time I had AKs in the small blind, so my re-raise had a bit more weight behind it. He tossed even more chips into the pot, putting me almost all-in. I had been paying enough attention to the table to know that he was playing hyper-aggressive, so I called the bet. He flipped over … The Hammer^TM. And when a K hit on the flop, I was happy. The turn was a 2, which put a bit of a scare in me after Pauly‘s display of Hammer mastery just a few hands previously. Fortunately the river was a blank and I had doubled up and started focusing a bit more.

Not much spectacular occurred over the next few levels. I kept stealing the occasional blind, but mostly just tried to wait out my mediocre cards. Unfortunately, my patience only went so far, as at the 100/200 level, I found myself in the small blind with sailboats. It was folded around to the button who raised it to T500. Now, I figured he could be raising from position with just about anything, so I re-raised to T1500 of my T3600, figuring that most of his hands there couldn’t take much pressure. Of course, I probably should have put a bit more pressure than that, but it was only my first mistake. He raised me back all-in and after a bit of thought, I pegged him for a bully and called. Of course, regardless of what hand he chose to be bully with, it still had me in a 50/50 situation. He flips over AJ of clubs, a jack hits on the flop, and I’m out in 47th place. I don’t think he made a great play there, but my play was nothing to write home about either. Regardless, I needed some more chips if I wanted to make a push for the real money, so once the T1500 went in, I was going to have a hard time not following it up. Congratulations to on_thg for walking away with first place and $906.

Also worth mentioning is the great job Sean (from Anistropy) and Pauly (you know where he’s from) have done putting together the official WPBT site. It has all the information you might need about the Poker Blogger tournaments, as well as a leaderboard that Sean is starting up with this year’s results. I had started working on something like this myself last year, but I never followed through. I’m happy to see that someone has gotten this information collected. And if you want to check out the results from last night’s tournament, just head on over.

Well, I’ve already started getting my game back in shape this year with a third place finish in the my first home tourney of the year. I should probably have locked up first with the chips I had, but my cards went cold when it got down to five and I lost too many chips trying to make moves. Nothing feels worse than getting called down with queen high.

I did implement my plan and pushed marginal edges much less than I usually do at these games. I can read some of the players pretty well and know when the flop has missed them. Unfortunately, I was still getting called down by trailing hands a lot of the time, so I wound up getting bumped from the tournament when people hit their draws. I know I’ve got a large edge on most of the field, so I’ve been choosing my spots far more carefully to stack the odds even further in my favour.

This week some buddies of mine got together for an impromptu H.O.R.S.E. ring game. It was only five of us, but it was old time boys who have been playing in the game for three years now. And they have all latched on to H.O.R.S.E. as a way to avoid the monotony of a night full of hold’em without resorting to any wildcard games. But short-handed play can really alter some of these games. In the case of this week’s game, it was some very peculiar Omaha and Omaha/8 hands. I was surprised by the number of pair or 2-pair hands that one the pot. But the most peculiar hand came in Omaha Hi where we had three 4s up in the middle. I was expecting a full house, but of course you need to play two cards from your hand and since no one had a pocket pair, the pot went to ace high, even though other players had paired the board. Understandably, the guy who folded AK to the river bet was upset that he didn’t realize the strength of his hand. In the end, I managed to nearly triple my buy-in playing some decent poker and capitalizing on other’s mistakes.

Of course, I followed up a night of solid poker with some pure gambling at the end of the night where I managed to throw all my profits away. I keep figuring that I’m due for some luck playing a little high card, which has almost become a tradition at the end of a night of poker, but somehow I keep flipping twos. Ah well, Doyle says you have to give action to get action. I can justify it that way, right?

I’ve finally finished assembling my poker resolutions for 2005. 2004 was my first year as a poker player and while I made a lot of progress – and a not insignificant amount of money – there is still a lot of room for improvement. So these are my resolutions for the next 12 months.

One post a week
In the last few months of the 2004, this blog was extremely neglected. Now, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to maintain the same frequency as I did earlier in the year, but I do plan on making a minimum of one post a week from here on out. This is not so much a poker goal, but I believe writing about the game can be a powerful learning tool.

Improve other games
One of the things I enjoyed most when I started taking poker seriously last year was reading up on the game and learning all the ins and outs. These days the lessons come much slower and I miss that process. Also, we’ve been playing HORSE just about every time we start up a side game, for the variety without getting into any wildcard games. So, the plan is to pick up a few books on Omaha and Stud to get a bit more in-depth with those games. It will help to satisfy my urge to study as well as improving my HORSE game. Actually, if anyone out there has recommendations for Stud or Omaha books, I’d love to hear them.

Get comfortable at the $5/$10 tables online
I’ve been sticking at the comfortable $2/$4 and $25PL tables for a while now. It’s past time that I stepped up and took a shot at the higher limits. Most of my money is being made off people playing bad poker instead of playing good poker myself. (like the AQo that just re-re-raised my KK and who I put all-in for all his chips pre-flop) Not that I’m a particularly poor player, but I can get away with playing lazy and making too many mistakes while still being profitable. If I want to improve at all, I’m going to have to take a few risks and play a bit outside my comfort level.

More live play
The extent of my live play last year was my bi-weekly $20 buy-in home tourney and five hours at the $5/$10 table at the CNE. I’ve got a few invitations into games and underground rooms around town. It’s past time I took some of those offers up. And there’s two casinos with poker rooms about an hour away. I don’t have a car, but I’m going to have to work out some visits. And who knows, maybe this will be the year I get down to Vegas.

More multi-table tournaments
I really enjoy multi-table tournaments and even finished in the money a few times last year (mostly freerolls). But as I committed less time to poker, I avoided tournaments and the longer time commitment required for them. I think my tournament game is pretty decent, and if I can manage to improve my late tournament play, there’s some money to be won there.

Originally I also had some financial goals for the year, but then I realized that is not a very good poker goal. All I can do is pick +EV spots or opportunities to improve my long-term EV. The above will do so, but setting a dollar target will not.