Only played four hands today, and didn’t have any decisions. Just an easy all-in reraise with 66 for 18 blinds on the fourth hand, and lost the flip to AK and finish tenth. Oh well. It was an amazing tournament. Fun even. Obviously I would’ve loved to finish a few spots higher, but my eyes were always on the prize at the top, and I gave myself a real shot to get it. Maybe next time.
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05Feb
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05Feb
After running amazing for three days, I didn’t get much in the way of cards on Day Four. I barely even had opportunities to make moves, and I lost a flip for a 1.75 million chip pot. That said, I did manage to make the final table with 1.2 million in chips (20 big blinds). It’s only half the average stack, but there are six players with 30 blinds or less, and the chip lead is only at 80 blinds, so I’m envisioning several entirely plausible ways I can get right back into the hunt for the title. I’ll give it my best shot. Wish me luck one last time!
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04Feb
It started off lousy. I lost a flip, bluffed off a bunch more, and was down to 112k. I then ran amazingly good and got up to a million. Then I had a misstep. I four-bet against an aggressive player, even though my instincts said he was strong. I overruled my instincts and set him in, thinking he would fold all but his monsters. He had AK, which was definitely a monster for the situation, and I lost half my stack to move back down to 500k. I then won every hand I played for the rest of the night. It was really incredible. To quote Worm, “I caught a run of cards like you **** read about.” Except I mean it in a good way.
I ended up at 1,978,000, which unofficially makes me the chip leader. We have 27 players left. I have a slightly below average stack for the final table–and we’re playing down to the final table tomorrow. My goal is to get a healthy final table stack, but really that’s a pretty meaningless goal. My goal is to maximize EV in every hand, and then deal with the situations as they come up. I’m trying to keep things simple.
And, of course, I’d like to start the day with a hot shower. Sadly, that’s still not possible yet here at the old Borgata. I took a frigid shower this morning. A guy I played with today said his roommate was in the Special Forces, and even he couldn’t deal with the frigid shower. Another guy said he screamed like a little girl throughout. Personally, I never stayed under the water for more than a few seconds. It was pretty agonizing. But after it was over, it felt amazing just to not be in the shower anymore. If any of you work on water mains in south New Jersey, please get down here and fix this thing. I’m sure a bunch of poker players would be happy to tip you a little something.
With that, I’ll say goodnight. Wish me luck tomorrow!
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03Feb
Day Two is in the books, and once again I can’t complain with the result. I’m not on the first page of the leaderboard anymore (I don’t think–I guess it depends how one defines the first page) with my 257,600. But there are about 135 players left, making average stack around 170k, so I’m still in decent shape. For the first time in the event, however, I’ll not have a deep stack tomorrow as we play 2k-4k, 400 ante. Til now, I’ve never had a stack size of fewer than 80 blinds. Day Three will feel more like a regular tournament. We’ll play down to 27, and 72 will get paid.
There is no hot water at the Borgata. Let me say that again. There is no hot water at the Borgata, and there hasn’t been for about 24 hours now. Not only that, they can’t regulate any of the temperatures inside the casino, so the poker room mobbed with players is insanely hot, while the rest of the place is really cold. It’s like the reverse of being in Vegas (with the blistering heat outside and the AC inside), but just as jarring. I’m praying they’ll have everything fixed by morning so that I don’t have to take a cold shower. Otherwise, I will whine and take a cold shower like the half-Russian-American I am.
Time for sleep. Moving Day is next!
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23Jan
I was cruising along happily in my PLO learning curve–playing 500 hands or so a night, studying a little and working on my other life (writing my novel) during the day–and everything was going great and I was enjoying myself. And then Rush Poker had to come along and mess with the program (as Fruit would say, in a little more colorful language).
Rush Poker, for those who don’t know, is a new format of online poker on Full Tilt where everyone who wants to play at a certain limit is thrown into the same pool of players. As soon as you fold a hand, you’re grouped with the next bunch of players who have finished a hand, and another hand is immediately dealt. So you’re getting new players all the time, but you’re seeing a lot more hands.
To me, Rush Poker is one of those ideas that seems so completely obvious in hindsight that it’s amazing no one had thought of it until now. I love it. So as I briefly go through some of the pros and cons, you should consider me a biased observer.
Pro: The implementation is, so far as I’ve been able to tell, flawless. I used to test software for a living, and I’m incredibly impressed that Rush Poker works so well. This thing would be considered smooth and successful if it had been out for a year. For a just-released piece of software, it’s astounding.
Con: with new opponents churning through all the time, there is less chance to learn their tendencies and use data against them. This is more of a con for other people than for me. I use a HUD but I don’t rely on it as heavily as other players. Besides, eventually, even in the big player pool, there will be enough data on all opponents and the HUD software will catch up to make itself usable on these new games. At least, I think that will happen.
Pro: So many freakin’ hands. I’ve never been good at grinding for many hours, or playing a whole ton of tables. As a result, I don’t put in nearly the volume of most online pros and have instead played tournaments (both online and brick-and-mortar) to maintain my interest and keep myself logging enough hours. With Rush, even I can get the hands in. I’m averaging 205 hands/table/hour!
Con: It’s not yet available for higher limits. This will change.
Pro: Multi-tabling is already enabled. You can have four versions of yourself at the same Rush “table.” The software knows to put each version of yourself at a different table from the others, and voila, you’re multi-tabling. As I said, it’s impressive.
Con: The players play tighter, because it’s easier to fold. While it’s true that most of the money in cash games comes from people playing too loose, there is plenty of money to be made from people playing too tight. Ask any tournament specialist. I think my style in particular (less player-dependent, more loose-aggressive) is better suited to the Rush Poker format than the normal format.
Sadly, Rush Poker is not yet available for PLO at any level higher than $0.10-$0.25. This, too, will change. In the meantime, I’m splitting my time between PLO (because I still want to log 50k hands as part of my learning curve) and NLHE Rush Poker. Because it’s just too fun. Hey all, poker is fun!
My next post will be from Atlantic City in a week or so. You can all look forward to hearing about this year’s version of the Borgata Winter Open.
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25Nov
If you want to be surprised by SpikeTV, read no further.
Otherwise…
I came in fifth. I won’t talk too much about the hands before the show airs, so that some of you have the chance to tell me, without any prior bias, how many ways I messed up. But overall, I’m pretty pleased with how I played. As of this writing, there’s only one thing I would’ve done differently (though that opinion may change as I gain more and more experience playing PLO). I think I’m a favorite to play a few of the PLO events in the 2010 World Series of Poker, and I think this USPC provided some solid experience for that venture.
Not sure yet what my next tournament will be. I’m considering the Harrah’s WSOP-Circuit event in which I cashed last year, but I’m not sure I can bring myself back to Atlantic City for a third time in a month.
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23Nov
Later this afternoon I’ll be playing the final table of the U.S. Poker Championship’s Pot-Limit Omaha event. I haven’t done a ton of preparation since we got to seven-handed on Tuesday, but I at least have the semblance of a plan. I’ll be posting updates to my twitter account as I get the chance. Here’s hoping I make a hand.
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18Nov
Well, I elbowed my way into the final seven of the USPC PLO tournament, which means you’ll all get to see me playing this crazy game on SpikeTV sometime in the near future.
I was up and down all day today. I lost 12k with 9876ss on the first hand I played to knock me down to 40k, but I worked that back up to 60k without showing down a hand (though I did have the nuts several times). I got chipped down a little, and then lost 28k to Michael Binger with AAT8s against his AAQ5ss. At my lowest I was down to about 17k. I finished at 41k, and again I don’t think I had to showdown a hand to climb back up. I only have 25 blinds, and I’m the second-shortest stack; but I haven’t once been all-in needing to win a showdown to survive, so maybe we can keep that streak going a little longer.
Joining me in the final seven are Binger, Matt Glantz, Amnon Filippi, Steve Zolotow, Allie Prescott, and a European player I don’t know (he’s on the short stack). It’s a fun group. All these guys are really accomplished players, and as we wound down towards the TV table today, all of us were talking hands, cracking jokes (some funnier than others), and we just generally had a really good rapport. I hope the event will make for entertaining TV for the many, many people who have no idea what Pot Limit Omaha is.
Time to start planning my 25 big blind strategy! I know what to do with that stack size in NLHE, having played a million NLHE tournaments. In PLO…I’m still trying to work it out. We play on Monday. Wish me luck.
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17Nov
I’m down at the luxurious Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City (I meant that sarcastically, but they’ve actually made a lot of improvements since the last time I was here and it’s pretty nice) playing the U.S. Poker Championship’s $2500 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha tournament. The final table of seven players will be televised on SpikeTV.
We got a whopping 32 runners, and they’re paying five spots. This means that two people will reach a televised final table and lose money. Hah!
As some of you know, I’ve been working hard on my PLO game and I thought this USPC event would be a great spot to get some more experience, and of course possibly win some money and get some TV time. We started with 15,000 in chips. I ran that up rather smoothly to 55k (someone got 100 blinds in against me with naked A2 on a 345 flop; for you non-PLO players out there, that’s really really bad), but then lost a couple of tough pots to go back down to 26k. Luckily I got on the right side of set-over-set against Steve Zolotow, and I ended Day One with 52,400. Thirteen players are left and we’re playing down to seven tomorrow (Tuesday). Average stack is 36,923.
I’m off to sleep now, but you can follow live updates on my progress via my twitter account.
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21Sep
Well, after consulting with a number of people, I decided not to play the WCOOP main event. I think that it would’ve probably been slightly +$EV to play the tournament, even with all the scheduling conflicts, but I don’t need to take every small +$EV opportunity that comes along. If I did, I would play poker for as many hours as possible, every single day. I basically became a poker player exactly so I wouldn’t have to work all the time. Therefore, I decided that rather than lose a ton of sleep, and be unfocused for Day Two of both tournaments, I would get a day’s rest, and a good night’s sleep, and be very focused for one tournament. As of this writing, it’s 1 a.m. and there are still 685 people left in WCOOP, so I’m liking my decision even more. Had I played, there would’ve been a very real chance of making Day Two, not cashing for very much, and getting blinded out of Borgata in the process. And who knows, I might not have enjoyed the J-E-T-S victory today as much if I’d had to play poker immediately afterwards.
Stoxpoker coach Garrett Beckman is currently in 14th place in WCOOP as I type this. I wish him the best of luck for the rest of tonight and tomorrow.
I, meanwhile, am going to get some sleep for Borgata.
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