WINNING POKER PLAYER

rolling that rock up the hill again….played four 2k pkg sats on FTP, but they are tough and small fields, got close on a few, but so far bad EV on about $900 worth of buyins. Also satted into a $700 mega sat on PS where my AK in BB was limped to, but ran into AA from utg who slowplayed them to perfection, smoothcalling all the way to turn. Back at it again thanks to a $1 rebuy donkfest today, (took some bad beats in a parallel $8 rebuy as well, where I had mucho chips, but then got coolered with QQ vs AK and should have cut my losses early instead of investing about $48 when I was lowest in chips near rebuy end). However, it was fairly easy to get and keep chips in the $1 buyin, especially after the rebuy break, even though it was a very fast structure, so I probably won’t play those super low buyins again, they can be too frustrating. I won a race with KQ vs 33 (who pushes all in with that low a pair when the other guy is probably committed? oh yes, that’s right, WSOP champions do ) and then cruised into the final 11 spots, so I am hoping that the $370 mega satellite for the WSOP will bear the same result as last year.

So Tournament selection is just as much key as table selection in cash. The 2k package deals on FTP are daily, but bad value imo, since there are many tough opponents and small fields. I also didn’t use the $1k WSOP ME sat ticket I won for the same reason when I saw a bunch of red marks in the field (my color code for good, dangerous players). After all, these guys are mostly pros, officially or not, but it’s interesting to see that the likes of Jon Turner use them to satellite into the ME as well.

I am back on a WSOP mission again. My friend who knows nothing about poker asked if I am gonna play poker again today, and I said only if there are some good satellites for the WSOP. Well, that was kind of a rhetoric answer since there are always some satellites on PS and FTP. So I played a supersatellite on Stars, a 3 buck unlimited rebuy donkfest where I pushed anything suited or any prime cards (not that I got any of those the first hour) and kept rebuying like ten times at least for double stacks in order to chip up. I don’t think playing THAT loose is a +EV play, and I ultimately got no chips and had to add on for a total of only 10k at the end of the rebuy period. By that time blinds were sky high at 800-1600 or so and I was down almost 100 bucks in rebuys . As mentioned, probably not a good strategy to rebuy that often. However, I chipped up with good hands and a few moves and got down to FT, so my huge investment even paid off as five would get in and I was in top four or so. Then I got AA with 250k chips at blinds of 10-20k, minraised on button, got what I wanted when the BB promptly pushed back, but his 68o won the hand. GRNF! I was tilting badly after that one since I got so close and woulda cruised to one of the spots for the ME SAT on Sunday ($700 buyin). However, even though I was crippled and down to my last 28k or so, the poker gods were with me, I chipped up again and sucked out myself against Mr 68 when I pushed on his blind (say hello to Mrs Karma) and thus squeezed into one of the last few spots once I got up to 500k again.

My other supersatellite, running parallel, was on Full Tilt, where I played a $109 trny for the big Thursday 1k WSOP ME satellite. This was tougher, but better play with standard structure and more of a typical grind at the final table when we all had about even stacks. I wish they had chop options for satellites as well as they do in real life, since I am sure we coulda made a deal when it was down to 7 and 6 got in. Anyway, I ended up folding after standard raises 3x, which was bad and my mistake (last hand was 55, which i shoulda shoved or folded). However, I made some successful steals and shoves, woke up with AA in BB when the SB shoved yet again (he did so 100% of the time) and it was finally over! Lesson for the day; just hang in there, and even the most atrocious bad beats balance out.

I still believe that making good laydowns is a major necessary skill for successful trny poker (though the tendency these days is to just plow ahead and hope for the best, see previous “Nobody folds” posts) and on that note i just made the worst good laydown in all my trny life.

FTOPS event 1, I sit at 12k chips, close to med stack with 2000+ players left, 700 itm, and have to make some folds to cbets or reraises. I finally get JJ in EP, raise standard 2.5x and get two callers, one goldshirt, the other a pro named Steve Yea. flop is 643, two clubs. I check to checkraise, Yea bets, but goldshirt goes AI for 11k! I tank and come to the conclusion that one of them must have a set and I’d be drawing pretty slim! I still have a relatively healthy and dangerous stack so I fold and I was right, twice even!: set over set, 66 vs 44! I pat myself on the back for a great fold with my overpair, but the river is a J! AAARGH! I woulda tripled up and cruised into the money and then some. Sometimes I wish I could just be a fish (I am a pisces after all ) and just ship it all in like half the field would! I am later rewarded by the poker gods when I get 55 and call an AI reraise reluctantly, hoping to race, but I am up against 88. However, I hit a beautiful 5 on the flop and get a much needed double up. Karma, baby!?

PS – I go all the way up to 66k and easily make the money, but later busted in 350th or so after I raised with AK and got reraised all in with A9o, which caught two pair! Ironically Chris Ferguson replaced me in my seat, did the same thing with AK vs AJ, but pretty much doubled up when the AJ shipped it after Chris’ reraise! Guess he practices better flops!

Good news, all bad streaks come to an end, and this one was overdue. Finally cashed in a Commerce trny again, this one a three day donkament where I actually made it into the money with 70k chips at 3k starting stacks and 1100+ players today (day 1b) and I am a bit disappointed in the final showing given my above average stack at the time, but it’s a step up from the usual bustouts in ugly fashion here.

I took advantage of some donks early on that called all the way with K9 on 9 hi flops etc. and chipped up early. Then some decent but Lag player raised utg, I had AK, put him all in for 5500 or so, and he calls with 44, saying “I only call cos of this structure”! What, 40 min levels arent long enough for you to fold 44? they hold and I am crippled, but I triple up again with AA soon. I hover at 10k for a long time and later I become table captain at my table with 25-30k chips after I double up with a tough call of 99 on a board of 445 that the BB decided to bluff checkraise with only a gutshot. I realize they all respect my raises and I can use this to my advantage until some familiar looking Asian guy in Ed Hardy getup and Dolce and Gabanna shades comes to our table with three racks. I knew he was a loose maniac by the amount of small chips he had in his racks, meaning he stole plenty antes and blinds. Welcome John Phan! Crazy plays, but lethal reading skills. Definitely makes for interesting poker as he likes to put you to the test a lot. And unfortunately he is two seats to my left, where he proceeded to cause havoc, raising utg with J8s and calling med stacks all in with it, etc. but he also had big hands like KK vs QQ, JJ vs TT, etc. and went on a rollercoaster ride that ended with him having the table chip lead ultimately.

However, I double up when some loose new tall stack guy in the BB defends my cutoff raise (ATs). Flop is 89T off, check, I bet, call. Turn is a brick, check again, I bet pot size for 10k with another 15k left or so, and there is also a flush draw now. He checkraises me all in, and we’re at 160 players, about 50 off the money, but I can’t care about that. I know I’m ahead and call, but have to dodge a ton of outs when he tables KJ. Eesh! However, the Commerce curse is broken when the river bricks out and he misses his 14 outs! Yeah! After that I was chipleader at my table again, but others soon caught up. Meanwhile my buddy Avi gets coolered with trip Qs vs 99, but he also made it to the money. Then i had to fold to some reraises, including pesky, but fun Mr Phan (we exchanged some banter when he joked that he was gonna take me out within an orbit), and I had about 45k left when utg raises and shortstack goes all in for 20k. I have the dreaded AQ and decide to race if necessary. Utg folds and he tables 99 and wins the race. Shoulda known better than to call with that dam hand. After that I couldnt even get an opportunity to steal and got blinded down from 28k to 14k when I made my final desperation shove at blinds of 1500-3k and ran into JJ. End of the hot run in 49th place, but I am happy with my play, given that I had few monsters, (only AA once, no KK or even QQ) and just got card dead at the wrong time in the end.

Just saw an amazing documentary on PBS about happiness and scientific studies on what it constitutes for people, how to be happier, positive psychology, etc. Ended with a nice conclusion that we’re all social animals and need meaningful relationships to be happy – guess that old French cynic Sartre is on the other end with his line “Hell is other people!”. No, hell is other donks online that give you terrible bad beats! But, seriously, the film nicely put things in perspective so when i shipped it against an aggressive donk in a HU match with 99 and he instacalled with 87o, I was happy and just more amused when he won. And guess what? He was French!

So happiness is often just a matter of perspective – there have been other moments when I literally punched holes in walls after those kind of absurd calls and beats, now it was just an amusing reminder that those donks, god bless em, give me plenty of money in the long run.

Also discovered an interesting book through the PBS movie, HAPPIER by Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches a popular positive psychology class at Harvard. Can’t wait to read it myself. You can check it out here:

Even if I may sound like an old grandpa griping about those young guns that have no sense or respect, the game has definitely changed from even just a few years ago. The Cada effect just showed itself again in a $150 buyin daily 100 grand guarantee trny. Early level 2, I doubled up already with AA and utg limps, SB completes, and I check in BB with 28o. Flop comes Q28 with two clubs. I bet out, utg calls and SB raises big. I call to peel one off, suspecting a flush draw, and SB promptly overbets the brick turn, a harmless 5, for 750 into a 500 pot! with 2k left or so. I reraise all in, thinking he might protect a Q or SAG play of a flush draw, he instacalls and sure enough shows 69c for the baby flush draw (and a gutshot, woohoo)!!! I couldn’t believe how weak his hand was. He misses and I just think he’s yet another flush donk that just can’t fold, but then I look him up on OPR out of curiosity and he seems to be a very successful winning 99.9 OP trny player!

And this is not the first time I’ve seen this maniac play from experienced online players. It points to the real reason of this hyperaggressive play in online poker: in the early levels, high risk plays are made to accumulate chips fast or go bust and then simply buy into the next trny or go have dinner with the girlfriend who adores these macho maniac moves when they work! In a live casino this stuff simply rarely happens! But his track record as one of the top online trny players proves it’s apparently a viable, if not even a very profitable way to play so hyperaggressively. So welcome to the brave new poker world where it’s just shove, shove, shove!

and PS proves my point again shortly after, when a med stack on button shoves over my KK 3x raise with KQ all in preflop and rivers broadway!

Well, I had a feeling that Cada winning the WSOP with his endless suckouts wasn’t gonna be good for trny poker, because it’s already so hyperaggro and luck-driven. And today I received more proof: hundred dollar buyin on PS, 790 players, two experienced players reraise, 4 bet and call each other all in with AJs and 55 when they had both pretty big stacks! I make it to the money with good solid poker (I even folded AQ on the bubble when villain woulda been committed); so I play tight after the bubble burst, since most shove light and thus I get respect as I only show down AQ and AK (unfortunately the AQ split with another AQ, but that’s good considering my history with it). Then I have 15k at 800-1600 blinds, easy shove on cutoff with A9, BB got about 20k and thinks a bit, then calls with… tada : K3s!!!!

Nuff said! Of course he wins! It might be good for the cash games, if more idiots think that poker is all about getting lucky and they make it more so by shoving and calling light, but in trny poker they become an increasing minefield of donks with chips! Yes, as the guy pointed out I am only about a 60-40 favorite, but he’s still the one gambling with a hand that is most likely behind! So everybody just gambles more these days! And that’s perhaps good for cash where the stats catch up, but in trny poker it often becomes a waste of time for hours of solid play to be nullified by one silly gamble like this. And the irony is that these donks that think it’s mostly about luck fulfill their own prophecy: if everybody starts shoving and calling like crazy, then there is not much more poker left, just shoving and praying that your marginal edges hold up or you suck out, because Cada and Moon have shown everybody that luck is just such a big factor these days. Sure, a K3 call is just idiotic and worse than Cada’s hyperaggro shove with 22 or 33 as it doesn’t even have any fold equity, but it’s done in the same gambling spirit that millions of viewers have seen to reap millions of dollars and thus they think they can do it, too. So thank you, Joe, for bringing in more gambling idiots, and f…, eh thanks a lot, Joe, for bringing in more gambling idiots!

Played the anniversary Sunday Million on PS with a special 2.5mil guarantee. A whopping 18k player field, woohoo, 2700 in the money! Got chips off some donks early and slowly built my stack, made it through the bubble with around 42k chips (10k starting stack), then shove on SB (folded once to BB before that, so not an obvious steal) with Q6s at blinds of 2-4k. I know that BB (a 99 Op player, how he got that many wins is a mystery to me) calls raises light and even reshoves with A2 etc and thus I decided to shove or fold this time. BB tanks with a stack that barely has me covered and finally calls with A9o. I lose and in retrospect shoulda folded perhaps, since I know everybody plays super LAG after the bubble, but I don’t think that’s a smart call and I like my push to add 7k or so. It’s a gamble call from BB to chip up with a very marginal hand. However, it’s just a trend I observe that nobody folds anymore: even before the bubble some 99 op players happily called my reraises with KJ all in! They raise, I make a committing, albeit suspicious, reraise with QQ in position, hoping they do exactly what they did, which is to just shove! Voila, KJ all in reraise for the other half of my chips and a third of his, which was probably the reason why he did it! And this from an experienced trny player with 99 op ranking! Which points to the problem of trny poker these days – much more aggressive and luck driven! Cada is no exception, you have to dodge many bullets to survive these days and chip up! So there is less skill and much more aggression and thus I feel that trny poker has forever changed for the worse. Maybe one day we will reach a stage where TAG Harrington style will be the antidote to all this crazy shoving and raising and calling. That’s how I got most of my chips in the first place.

Went up to Vegas with some friends and got into the Penn and Teller theatre pretty early around 2 PM. Organization was fairly chaotic, as there were wristbands, stamps, tickets, etc. but you also had to wait to get back in once you left the theatre unless you had hard tickets (ie were part of a player’s entourage). Cada, Begleiter aka Begs, Schaffel and Saoud had the most organized and vocal support groups with t-shirts etc. and we sat next to some Begs people and some nice Shulman friends and family who lent us their tickets so we could leave the theater on occasion to grab food or drinks. Play was remarkably slow and they only got in ten hands an hour or so and took breaks almost every hour, so we were in for a long day, already tired from long poker sessions the night before. It was really annoying how slow the play was, maybe for production reasons or to create more drama when there was a flop and showdown, which often took forever. How long can it take to count chips and put out the turn and river?

Anyway, not going into detail of the hands, you can follow all that on pokernews.com etc., but Darvin Moon continued his luckbox run with some incredible suckouts and also puzzling plays, ie once he checkraised Begs 15 mil on a raggedy flop and then folded for another 6 mil of Begs’ all in! WTF? We even heard later on through supporters what they had, KQ Moon vs Begs’ AK nut flush draw, will be interesting to see on camera Tuesday. We took a break at dinner break at 7 PM ourselves and returned later around 10 PM. It took four hours to lose the first player, James Akenhead, who got up to 15M from his shortstack but then ran into Schaffel’s AA with KK. Ironically Schaffel had AA vs KK later again and was positioned to make a deep run, but was busted by the tight playing Buchman, who got lucky with quad Ks. The whole thing moved at a snails place, but there were some good dramatic hands and the atmosphere was rowdy fun.

Most surprising and disappointing to me was how tight Ivey was sitting as others went on roller coaster rides with their chipstack (Moon, Akenhead, Cada and later Begs). Ivey once got up to 16M or so, then lost an all in to the shortstacked Cada and later got blinded down again all the way to less than 7M, which was shocking to me at those high blinds. It was very anticlimactic and somewhat atypical for him. He even walked Begs’ BB when it was folded to him in the SB and seemed strangely gunshy. Moon (who else?) took him out (how else?) with a suckout of AQ vs Iveys AK. Moon played pretty bad, folding mostly, but then taking unnecessary risks and donking off chips, as with the Begs raise, and I left in disgust shortly after the Ivey bust (yes, I had money riding on him). As I left the theatre, Moon got involved in another showdown, tabling AQ vs Begs QQ all in preflop for 20 mil when blinds were still under 1 mil! Begs was happy, the crowd gasped as the flop came rags, the turn another brick, but then BAM!, Moon does it again on the river with an A. Basically the whole thing showed how much luck there is involved in tournament poker. Ivey didn’t stand much of a chance, and I guess his game plan was to sit tight to wait to double up and get some chips to outplay his opponents, but he never really got there. Most players also avoided Ivey’s raises the few times he did raise, and there was one significant moment where Shulman raised, Ivey pushed back all in from the BB for half of Shulman’s stack and Shulman tanked forever before finally folding, much to the dismay of the Shulman gang next to us. Again, should be good to see their hands Tuesday!

ok, time for some quick railbirding. First Ivey mucks the winning hand 3 weeks ago on ESPN with his 88 and 8 hi flush, which only shows he’s human after all and it happens to the best of them (and a reason why I always double check before I muck or wait for the villain to show in case they angle shoot or misread their hand). Then this week we’ve seen some of the most atrocious play ever with luckbox Darvin Moon, fairly likable everyman, vs Billy Kopp and his 35h flush. Moon had QJh in BB, and both were big stacked as chipleaders, only few players away from the promised land. What followed was one of the biggest blowups ever with terrible play on both sides.

Here is what went down:

Darvin Moon 23,650,000 chips, Bill Kopp 21,000,000 chips. 120,000/240,000 blinds with 30,000 ante.

Moon QdJd

Kopp 5d3d

Board Kd9d2d 2h 7c

Flop: Moon check called 750K. So far, so good.
Then on turn all hell breaks loose. Moon check-raised 2 mill. to 6 mill. and Kopp re-raised all in. Moon incredibly snap called!

First, they both violated the rule to not clash with another big stack so close to FT. Advanced SAG players use that against other tall stacks, but I don’t think that’s what happened here. Kopp also looked very surprised when he saw Moon’s hand, not to mention sick (even though he later tried to defend his play as an aggressive de facto bluff, which seems like BS to me to defend this giant blowup).

Second, none of them seemed concerned at all about a potential Full House? On crazy action on a paired board? I’d reluctantly muck a nut flush there! Moon claimed in an interview later that there was no pair on turn, but of course the TV proved him wrong and he revealed himself to be the amateur he is. Funniest thing was when the otherwise fairly humble Moon was needling during Kopp’s exit, saying what was Kopp pushing with his other tall stack with just a small flush? You doofus risked all your chips with only the second nut flush !!!

Going up this weekend to Vegas to catch some of the action live, but I wonder if Moon will just steamroll the table with ABC luckbox poker, donk off chips or sit tight as announced in the interview (yeah, that’s smart to announce your strategy to the others). I like Ivey’s chances if he doubles up quickly, but he doesn’t have too much room. Buchman is my personal favorite.