Another final table -- almost

Played in one of the PokerStars 180s last night (their 180-person tournaments that they run), and came in 10th; final table was 9. boo.

On the way there, this hand came up:
AA over QQ

Basically, his pocket queens ran into my pocket aces. Then, see the chatbox in the image of the table, below:



Now that's just rude.

Anyways, I was definitely running pretty hot in the first half of this tournament -- this hand put me up to about 13k in chips, which was good for at least top 5 at this point. I basically hovered between 1st - 5th for a while, but then after a while I just couldn't make anything happen, and eventually busted one shy of the final table. oh well.

I was just realizing, too, that I've not yet come in 1st in one of these big tournaments... in anything bigger than like 5 tables. I mean, I haven't played all that many yet, so it's not surprising or anything. But like, these prize pools are very top-heavy; 1st place is where a large chunk of the money is. So... it's time to make it happen!

16th of 301

Last night I played in another medium-field tournament, still of a small buy-in ($5, with 1 rebuy and 1 add-on; I didn't have to rebuy, but I did the add-on), but with 301 players, 1st place got up to about $750 so that's certainly a nice prize for a $10 investment.

Things were going pretty well, and I got all the way down to the final two tables without much mishap. Then comes one hand, when I'm sitting at about 50,000 chips (just below average at this point): a short-stack moves all-in for about 12,000, one of the bigger stacks re-raises to 20,000 and I'm sitting in the small-blind with pocket kings. I move all-in, everyone else folds and the big stack calls. He's holding AQ, spikes an A on the flop and I'm out in 16th.

Bummer because if I win this pot, I'm up to like 120,000 chips (which would have been about 2nd in chip standings) and would have an excellent chance of making it to the final table and a shot at the 1st place prize.

Did I play it wrong? No way -- I did worry for a split second about the big stack having pocket aces, but that's such a small part of his range; he could be isolating the short stack with anything down to like a medium pocket pair. So I'm definitely not folding. But... could I just call and re-evaluate on the flop? Not with our stack sizes, I don't think. If I just call, there's now 36,000 in the main pot and 16,000 in the side-pot. Then with about 30,000 left in my stack, basically my only move on the flop is an all-in (or a fold). So... I could shove any flop that doesn't have an ace, but what good does that do? If he had a smaller pocket pair than kings, he's probably gonna fold unless he hit a set. And I wouldn't even know if an ace on the flop was a problem for me or not, so this just puts me in all sorts of trouble.

As played, I got called by an inferior hand which is exactly what you want, so definitely by that standard I did the right thing. Unfortunately, it just didn't go my way here.

For 16th place, I won a relatively meaningless prize of $22.73. However, it IS encouraging to continue to go deep in these medium-sized tournaments, so I'm happy about it from that standpoint.

Two final tables and the Holiday $100K

Last night I played a few tournaments, including two in which I made it to the final table, each with roughly 100 players to start. Of course, I'm playing tournaments with tiny buy-ins right now ($5-$10), so the prize money wasn't all that much -- about $40 for 5th place in one, and $150 for 2nd place in the other. The 2nd place finish was actually kind of bitter-sweet, because in one hand during heads-up I had my opponent all-in on the turn with only 5 outs (I had top pair, he had middle pair), and he spiked his trips on the river. And 1st place was $250, so I missed out on an extra $100 there once he won it in the end. But hey, my bankroll IS getting re-built, little by little...

Additionally, I won a seat into the Holiday $100K. So this is a tournament with a total prize pool of $100,000, with 1st place prize money of $10,500. That takes place on Sunday, 12/28 so that's still pretty far away. But it'll be my first tournament of that magnitude in a while.

Matt and I were unsuccessful in our endeavour to play free poker at Goldie's; it turns out that the information on the website was incorrect, and they only have poker on Monday nights (the website said Monday and Wednesday, and we went on a Wednesday). Bummer. Maybe I'll just have to get myself to a real casino again soon...

End of the quarter

Since winter break just started, there is more time to play again. And I've been feeling the desire lately to get back into it.

Last year's WSOP effort didn't end up amounting to anything, because I ran/played really bad for a bit and almost busted my whole Full Tilt account before really even getting into any satellites. I also just pulled over $1000 out of my poker bank account to help pay for overwhelming bills of late.

So now it's all about building the roll back up, before dreaming up any more WSOP plans. In other news, I think I may have finally gotten over the drunken poker stupidity problem -- that is, my habit of signing into my poker account after a night of drinking, and then losing lots of money. The fact that I don't get that drunk very often anymore helps with this too, but last night was our end-of-the-quarter party, and after it was over, I managed to keep myself to just 1 $5 tournament (which I even wound up winning!) before going to bed. So I'm proud of myself for that... and really, all told I think I must have dropped like $3,000 over the years while playing drunk... so it'd be good if I've finally learned my lesson with that.

Matt and I are going to a free poker night at Goldie's up the street from us. I don't know what it's going to be like, and whether they'll have prizes or what, but hopefully it will at least be fun. I've really been itching to touch some cards and chips again.

WSOP EFFORT: UPDATE

School is more fun than poker.

WSOP: 2008 effort coming up

I've decided that I want to make a semi-reasonable run at a WSOP seat this year. I've just been dreaming about it so much lately. As you know, I did NOT play in 2007. I didn't get the chance to play very many satellites, because I was bogged down with school and we had our 1st year comprehensive exam in June. With the WSOP being in June-July, this didn't really work out so well.

This year, I'm still getting pretty clobbered by school, but we don't have a huge exam in June. So the schedule might work such that I can get some satellites in. I also have a slightly healthier bankroll right now than last year, although it's still not in GREAT shape (right around $2k now).

This is also coming in the wake of dropping about $250 online the other night while playing fairly hammered. Sigh, some things never change, I guess. At least I wasn't playing 30/60 HU this time. Hopefully I've learned THAT lesson.

Anyways, in my Full Tilt account I currently have $1,064.33. Satellites start probably really soon, but I'm gonna work on building this roll up a bit more first.

Here's the plan: Build the roll up to $3k, and then allocate $1k to WSOP satellites. When I won the seat in 2006, I had allocated $2k for satellites, although I actually got it around the $800 mark.

Now, building up to $3k does seem a bit lofty right now to do in a short amount of time, especially since I'm not playing particularly high limits at the moment. But we'll see how it goes. If I don't quite make it to $3k, I might just take 1/2 of whatever I've made between now and May or so, and put that to WSOP satellite use.

Here's to being a kid with a dream.

FTOPS GG

Well. That's that. Just busted in 3216. These two hands had a lot to do it:

I knew you had nothing

And,
lol

ok well. back to my homework now.

FTOPS 1st break

ok here we are on the first break.

I'm sitting at 4290 chips, a bit under the starting stack of 5000. Haven't really been able to do much yet. My table seems unremarkable thus far, with a couple of the fish busting early so that doesn't really help things in terms of trying to get something going.

I had one potentially big hand that I think I screwed up:
J8d in big blind
Was hoping to get in a check-push on the turn, but whiffed. The river card sucks cuz it kills my action, and my hand looks exactly like a flush. But I figured at that point my best bet was an overbet to look like a bluff. Or in case HE has the flush, I'm making him pay for it. But his hand doesn't look like a flush at all; my guess is that he had a medium-big Jack. He did tank forever, but eventually folded :(

Here's another hand that went badly:
River bluff-raise
I wanted to pounce on that river bet of 200 since it looked so weak, and this guy has been playing tight so I thought I could make him fold. I guess the question is, what am I trying to represent? Well, I'd play a set this way, or a 5, and check that turn when I hit my house or trips. I also could have clubs. But my bet size sucks; I didn't do the math carefully because I'm only making him call 600 for a pot of 1400 at that point. So yeah, that's silly.

Anyways. Back at it.

FTOPS Main Event

So I've barely been playing any poker these days since school has been killing me.

But somehow, on Friday night, I won a satellite into the FTOPS Main Event, which is a $500+35 buy-in tournament.

This is gonna be interesting, since I don't even know if I remember how to play.

It just started, and there are 4371 entrants with top 585 getting paid. 1st place is just over $385,000.

And away we go...

Road Tripping

So as part of my roadtrip over the past week, I went to Vegas for one night with Kohn and Gabe. We picked up Gabe from UCLA the morning after Reeck and Crystal's wedding (which actually was a LOT of fun), as Crystal's mom insisted that we stop at their brunch that morning and to bring Gabe with us even though he didn't come to the wedding.

We arrived in Vegas around 5:30pm that evening. I actually wanted to go to church since I hadn't yet that day, so I went to mass at the UNLV Catholic Newman Center as Gabe and Kohn got started.

Gabe started out at the MGM, where Kohn and I met him soon after. I sat with Gabe at his 1/2 NL table as Kohn went off to the craps tables. This session didn't go well for Gabe. Kohn lost as well. Things weren't really going my way either, until one hand late in the session where I had A8d in late position so I limped after some limpers. Flop came with 2 diamonds and it checked to me so I bet $10 and got one caller after me. Turn was the Ace of hearts, so good card but I don't want this pot to get out of control in case I'm behind, so I check-called as he bet $20. River was the beautiful King of diamonds, I pondered, then bet $50, which at the time I thought was an overbet (which I intended) but after recalculating right now it's a pure value-bet. whoops. A few drinks can really hinder your ability to count the pot. Anyways, I tried to look like I was nervous and didn't want a call... I'm not sure if that is what did it, but I then heard the beautiful words "all-in" and I had to double-check that I indeed did have the nuts. No straight-flush was possible, and I did in fact have the Ace and Eight of diamonds, so I made the call and just turned over my cards to save him the time and trouble.

After that, Gabe and I had been waiting on a list for a 2/4 Mix game, which we were told was just a rotation where the game was decided at the beginning of each new dealer. Sounded like a lot of fun. But we were 1 and 2 on the list for like a good two hours; NO ONE was getting up from this game. Drats.

But Kohn was ready to call it a night, as he had lost as much as he wanted to and did not want to interfere with our poker. As soon as I realized he was serious about leaving, I said "no way," screw poker, convinced him to stay up and we would continue to drink. We abandoned the MGM and headed back to Bally's to play some video poker and get free drinks while doing so.

Then Gabe kept talking about somewhere that had $1 beers so we headed off in search of this, since Kohn did not want to gamble anymore so we had to find an alternative way to get cheap drinks. We stopped at Bill's Gambling Hall where they had 99 cent Margheritas, but those turned out to be extremely small. So we moved on, next to O'Sheas that advertised "Beer Pong." We went in to investigate, and it turned out to be $20 to buy the two pitchers of beer to play. And these were some fairly small pitchers so it was kind of a rip-off. But we found 2 other guys who wanted to play, so we agreed to play with them and loser would pay. Gabe offers to put the money up front to buy the pitchers, so he goes up to the bar to get them. He of course gets carded (see early Borgata trip report heh), and... it turns out that Gabe had just gotten his California license. But since they don't print them out immediately (they send them in the mail within 10 days), all he had was a paper document to use in the meantime. The bartender would not accept this. Ridiculous... I think we could've called the cops to take care of this since that paper is a legal document. But we instead chose to just argue. Then I said I'd just buy it, but the bartender said "ok, but he (Gabe) can't play." WTFLOL. We talk to the manager too, who won't hear any of it. So we bounce.

Next stop is at Casino Royale, Kohn's favorite place to gamble, and this turns out to be the place with $1 beers! Hooray!! So we hang out there for a bit. This place also has this weird version of Blackjack called Blackjack Switch. Basically, you play two hands, and before you decide whether you are going to hit or stand, you have to decide if you want to switch your cards or not. So for example, if in one hand you have A6 and in the other hand you have 5J, you can switch them so that you have AJ and 56, two far superior hands than previously. But you can only switch the 2nd cards that you receive. Also, blackjack only plays 1:1 (instead of 3:2), and the dealer doesn't bust on 22; if dealer hits 22 then it is a push. Anyways, we played this game for a bit, Gabe won about $100 and I won like $150. w00t.

Finally we head back to Bill's for the cheap breakfast. Except Gabe ordered the steak dinner.

We finally get back to our room at 5am, which was a complete shock to all of us that it was so late.

The next morning we wake up and nurse our hangovers, and head to the Venetian where Gabe and I go to buy tickets to the Blue Man Group, which I really wanted to see since Nick Kittle is in it right now; I know him from Michigan where he was a percussion performance major and in the Marching Band for a year. So we buy them, and then meet up with Nick for lunch/brunch at Peppermill which is a nice little place on the north end of the strip. Kohn unfortunately can't make it to the show since his flight is at 8pm and the show starts at 7pm. But Gabe and I go, and it's an awesome show. Definitely worth seeing. Then we take off after that and head back to LA.

btw it's such a good feeling to drive in Las Vegas. So much better than cab rides. Especially since I now have such a bitter taste in my mouth about Las Vegas cab drivers (see previous post). And it's like, every time I would drive somewhere, I'd just feel like I'm saving $10 or whatever the cab ride would have cost.

Oh also. Today I was driving in rural Oregon (on my way back north after a fun week in LA, San Diego, and Berkeley), and I saw a bunch of signs for a casino. I debated stopping at it... and as I was driving by, I actually missed it. So I was about to keep going, but then I decided that I really wanted to see it, just out of curiousity. So I turned around and went to it. It was... pretty small. But not shady at all, even though it was completely in the middle of nowhere and totally surrounded by woods in all directions. I guess it was sort of close to Crater Lake, but that's about it. Anyways, basically all they had was a bunch of slot machines and a few blackjack tables, with minimum bet of $5. I sat at one for a little bit, and left down $10. oh well.

Anyways this road trip is coming to an end but it's been an awesome one. I think I could see myself living someday in any of the places that I visited. Well, not Hood River. But LA, Vegas, San Diego, Berkeley/Bay area... yeah, I think so. If Seattle doesn't work out for the long run.

3-handed at Parkers 8/16 game

Somehow, last night, Mike and I ended up playing 3-handed in an 8/16 game at Parkers with one other random dude.

Not exactly the game sitution that I'd like to be in. But basically, we were on the list for 8/16, we got called, and as we were making our way to the table, the game completely broke. There was just one guy left who wanted to play, and suggested that we play 3-handed. I didn't really want to, but Mike did, and the other guy kept saying that more people will come if we keep the game going. So we did.

Anyways, I wound up winning a little bit (like $40) in about an hour. Mike dropped about $200.

Our game ended when the other guy got called for his 12/24 seat. Then Mike suggested that we play heads up. I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not, but I said HELL NO. haha. That kid is crazy sometimes.

Then we got our free comped food (we both ordered fried chicken wings) and left.

Also, I made a bet with Bill (one of Mike's old housemates) last night that he wouldn't get mugged in the next 12 months. He recently moved to First Hill, which is kind of a hit-or-miss neighborhood, in that some parts of it are nice and some are quite shady. But I don't think he will actually get mugged, he's a pretty big white guy, and I'd think that thieves would have better targets than him. So we made a $50 bet last night, if he doesn't get mugged in the next year then I win $50, and if he does get mugged, then I pay him $50. So he has a little insurance for if he does get mugged, heh.

Less than one week until Vegas!!

Unplanned trip

On Sunday, I was trying to return from Detroit to Seattle, on standby. Unfortunately, all flights out of Detroit were overbooked, even into Monday. Things were looking pretty grim. Furthermore, there were no direct flights; I would have to connect somewhere else to get to Seattle. But it looked like as long as I could get out of Detroit, my second flight would be fine.

Well Sunday went by as I did not get on any flight... until 11:45pm, somehow I got on a flight to Las Vegas!

I passed out for the entire flight. I had been drinking somewhat steadily for my last 4 hours in Detroit.

I landed at McCarran around 1:30am. The next flight out of Vegas to Seattle was at 9:30am. So, after wandering around the airport for a little bit, I started to ask myself the obvious question: Should I head to the strip? The answer was of course a YES!!

So I did. Of course, I did not have much cash with me, and could not pull that much out of the ATM either. So I wasn't even sure what I was going to play. Eventually I decided I would just keep it simple and play 4/8 at the Bellagio.

Quick side-note: On my cab ride from the airport, the driver took me through the tunnel onto I-15. This is the long way, and costs almost twice as much. I wasn't very pleased about this, and it hadn't actually happened to me before so I didn't really think about telling him not to beforehand (the first I had ever heard about it was when it happened to Emily sometime last year). More details about that can be found here: 2+2 thread

Anyways, I actually went first to Bally's to check my bags. Not that I couldn't have done that at the Bellagio, but Bally's is more familiar to me so you just go with what you know, you know? Also I had planned on ending the night/morning with a breakfast at the Barbary Coast (now called Bill's Gambling Hall or something?) as we had done on other trips, since they have a really cheap breakfast special from midnight to 7am, so that made Bally's a reasonable place to leave my stuff.

I eventually got to a 4/8 table at the Bellagio around 2:30am. The room was still pretty lively, I'd guess about 20 full tables of action. Pretty impressive for a random Sunday night.

The game was pretty good. Lots of pre-flop limping, lots of cold-calling, lots of junk showdowns. And I had a complete maniac directly to my right. He was raising pre-flop with hands such as Q3c, 65o, T2o, etc etc, even 3-betting with such hands. So I had good position on him. Unfortunately, on my best hand of the night, I hit two pair with ATo, only to lose to his set of 8s. And of course I gave him a LOT of action since I didn't figure him to have anything. Anyways, I dropped $200 in this game, but not before getting a coffee and two double Glenlivets neat. That would've cost me about $30 at a bar, so that softens the blow a little :)

There was one really talkative girl at my table. She kept telling the old man next to her how beautiful his daughter was, and then later when his wife came over, how beautiful she was as well. And she kept trying to talk to the guy next to me, who wouldn't respond to her at all. After he wouldn't talk to her, she kept calling him "quiet" and "unfriendly," and then to really get in his face, she stuck out her hand to him and said "My name is Heather, what's yours?" He still completely ignored her. She talked to me a bit too, told me how she wanted an Asian daughter because they are so pretty. Started flirting with me, asked if I was a California boy, I told her I was from Seattle, she asked if she could crash with me if she came up there, I jokingly said yeah! Then she was like "ok give me your number" and whipped out her phone to save it. At that point I waved my hands and was like "nah." Fortunately she didn't seem to take too much offense. She wasn't too bad looking but she was a bit older, and actually was getting quite annoying. And I wasn't about to shout my phone number across the table regardless. Anyways, after about an hour, the guy who wouldn't respond to her at all jumps up and yells "YES!!" sticks out his hand to her and says "Hi, my name is Andy. I just won a $25,000 bet for not talking to you until 4:45."

weird.

Anyways, it was about 6am when I busted my stack. I headed over for breakfast, went back to Bally's to get my bags, and went back to the airport. I may have dropped $200 but I was playing in a good game where I most certainly had +EV, and I got there for free (well, minus $35 for cab rides there and back), so I can't complain.

Oh and I got on the 9:30am flight to Seattle with no problems, and was at work by 3pm.

Next trip to Vegas in 1 1/2 weeks!!

Back from Vegas

Well, I didn't end up playing in any WSOP events this year. My plan had been to play some satellites on Friday night right when I arrived, but I missed my flight so I actually didn't get there until Saturday afternoon.

Rahul played in the $1500 NL event on Saturday. He had actually won his buy-in into this event at a 2/5 table the night before. Unfortunately, he busted in 2 hours.

I played in a $150 limit hold'em tournament at Binions on Monday. I thought this was a pretty good tournament, well run and nice structure. And lots of people really don't know how to play limit. I think I definitely had an edge in this tournament. Unfortunately I had a couple of rough beats and made a couple of mistakes, to bust in about 2 hours.

The video poker plan didn't really work out either, because I just never found much time to play. I spent most of my time at the poker tables. Which is well enough; I came out about +$320 on the trip.

Anyways, my new summer project is to learn Omaha hi/lo. I've wanted to branch out from Hold'em for a while now, but for some reason never really found the time or motivation to do so. But this summer seems like a pretty good time for this. I really didn't know much about Omaha strategy before I started reading and studying over this past week. It's amazing how NOT intuitive it is after playing Hold'em. So I have a lot to learn. I'm looking forward to the challenge. Maybe I'll even go for a WSOP bracelet in Omaha hi/lo someday. You heard it here first.

ONE WEEK UNTIL VEGAS

w00t

So excited for Vegas! Still sad that I won't be playing in the WSOP, but oh well. Maybe I can make something happen in a live satellite.

I'm a little concerned about my video poker plan (see previous entry), because I've been practicing on a simulator and I'm still making mistakes. I've been improving, but this game is a little trickier to play perfectly than I expected. Right now I tend to make about 5-10 mistakes per 100 hands, on Deuces Wild. I haven't been practicing Jacks or Better as much, because Deuces Wild actually has >100% EV, whereas JoB has just under 100%. But I should be practicing both. Hopefully I can get them both near perfect through this week, or else I will have to bag that plan.

Tomorrow I am going to try and satellite into the $40k Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt. This is a $150 buy-in tournament. I was debating between going for this one and going for the $1,000 buy-in that is also tomorrow, but that of course would be a longer shot to get into. So I think I'll go with the $40k, and see if I can make anything happen in that.

The other possible plan for tomorrow would be to just head up to Tulalip. I went last week, for some 3/5 NL with $300 max buy-in. I played ridiculously bad for the first hour, and still managed to pull $200 out of that game. I'm actually still really mad at myself for how I played at first, I was just playing absolutely stupid. Stuff like open-limping on the button, calling raises with A8h, and then not folding on the flop with just a pair of aces, bluffing into a loose player, etc etc. Just awful. Hopefully it's out of my system now, at least.

But anyways. I enjoy tournaments more than cash anyways. Unfortunately I think I'm better at cash. Particularly limit. sigh.

but yeah. VEGAS BABY!!

no wsop for me this year

Well my run for a Main Event seat has ended almost before it even started.

Since school has kept me so busy this year, I didn't really start playing any WSOP satellites until this week. The main one that I wanted to play in was $535 buy-in, the 100 seat guarantee. It is running right now, and the final count of entrants was 3,338 which means that actually the top 139 will get a seat.

Earlier, I played 3 satellites each for $69 (which I actually won seats into) to get into the $535, but could not connect on any of them. Then today, I played in a $109 buy-in satellite (which I also won my seat into) with about 1000 entrants and top 204 getting a seat into the $535. But unfortunately, I busted in 253 when I got so short that I had to push A9o, and ran into AK and got no help.

But, RAHUL is in this tournament right now, the 100 seat guarantee. Last update he said he was in about 600th, out of the 3,338. GOGOGOGOGOGO RAHUL.

I didn't really expect to win a seat this year, with my limited time and limited bankroll. But it'll be pretty sweet if Rahul does, again.

And I'm still going to try to play in some live satellites for a seat into one of the smaller WSOP events, like $1500 buy-in or so. We'll see how that goes.

No comps? :(

So we're going to Vegas from June 29th to July 3rd. My plane ticket is booked. Only problem is... we don't have a hotel room yet!

Jeff had a voucher for 2 free weekday nights at Bally's which we were going to use for Sunday and Monday nights, but unfortunately he hasn't called to book it yet, and I just heard from Emily who tried to book rooms with a deal that she got around those same dates, and they told her that the rooms were too booked up to let her use her deal.

So this does not bode well for us. Our only hope is that Jeff's deal is somehow different enough that they will let him use it despite what they told Emily.

Augh. Weekend rack rates are like $155, and weekday are like $70ish. So this could suck. Meanwhile I did not receive any comped rooms this time around so I have no control over this. Bummer. We've been so used to staying at Bally's for so cheap. I got a deal for our Christmas trip for like $29, I got free Paris rooms over the summer, and other Bally's deals in the past too.

The difference is that on my past trip, I didn't play any -EV games. Those are the ones that they like to give you stuff for, to make you come back. Jeff no doubt got his comps from that big rush in Blackjack that he went on, when he was betting like $100-$200 per hand. The way they rate your play is based on how big you're betting and how long you're playing. The outcome has absolutely no bearing on it. They just want people who will give them big action to come back.

In the past, I've played Blackjack and Pai Gow giving them action of like $25-$100 per hand. But I could never play Blackjack for very long because that game terrifies me, even when I had a decent roll, so I never even built up THAT many points. Just enough to get a free room here and there.

Well, lately I've been reading about video poker, because Mike told me that you can actually beat it. This really surprised me, and coming from just about anyone else I wouldn't have believed it. But as Mike is a 2nd year in the Biostatistics department (ha ha) and a reader of 2+2, I have some faith in what he says about gambling and EV. So I looked into it. There are tons of different variations of this, but some are better than others, and some even have positive expectation. These are of course quite rare, but a decent game that shouldn't be too hard to find is 9/6JoB.

This is Jacks or Better, and the 9/6 means as follows: the 9 is the payout for a full house and the 6 is the payout for a flush. Other games have different payouts for these two hands, like 8/6, 8/5, even 6/5. This of course makes a huge difference in the long run, and with perfect play, 9/6JoB has a longterm expectation of .9954 per hand.

This means that if I'm at a 25 cent machine betting the max (5 coins, so $1.25), playing 1000 hands per hour (about average), I can expect to be down about $57.50 in 10 hours.

Ok so you're probably not quite sold on this yet. Why stare at a screen for 10 hours just to lose 60 bucks? Where does "beating it" come in? Well, what I've found out is that playing 25 cents at max bet for an hour is roughly equivalent to playing $25 blackjack for an hour, as far as comps go. That's pretty decent. And I can't play blackjack for more than like one hour without having a heart attack. It just moves too fast. But the comps that can be generated by this level of play are nothing to scoff at, in the form of free rooms, cashback, and gift cards. This can add up to way more than the $60 expected loss.

You might wonder how they can do even this. Why give you back more money than you're losing to them? Well, two things. First, not everyone plays "perfect," so their expectation is quite a bit lower. I hope to learn "perfect" play by my trip, which appears to be feasible for this variant of video poker (others are tougher). Second, things like free rooms will be quite valuable to me but cost almost nothing to them, especially if I use it at an off-peak time. Even gift cards probably cost them less than face value, and if I use it at somewhere that I would shop anyways, it's the same as cash to me.

The other thing is that video poker machines are sometimes tied to progressive jackpots. These can get quite huge, and if it's big enough, you might be actually playing with positive expectation. Ok so the odds of hitting a jackpot are of course quite low even if it gives you positive expectation, but from a gambling perspective, we always have to think about things in terms of an infinite sample size. If you think about everything this way, your long term results will show it even if it does not manifest itself in a given trip.

So. 10 hours of play. Cost $60 on average. Chance to hit a sweet jackpot. Keep the free scotch coming. And hopefully comped rooms for my next trip and probably other comps as well.

Everyone wins.

I hope. Will report back on this.

Back to the real world

It's funny to think that exactly a year ago, I was in Las Vegas. With Emily, vk, Wendy and Rahul, for Memorial Day weekend. I was one week away from leaving my job to spend the summer playing poker full time and studying to prepare for entering my PhD program. I had WSOP seat in hand, and roughly a $10k bankroll.

Today, I'm not in Vegas, I have no WSOP seat, and I have about $1k in the "bankroll." Not even much of a roll at all. I did make a good amount through the summer, but I ended up spending way more than expected to cripple the roll, plus took a nasty downswing in December. I remember... at Mike's New Years party, we had a discussion involving how to rebuild from a $500 bankroll. yeah. So at least I've made some progress since then.

I haven't made much of a push for winning a seat this year. School has been taking way too much time. I've played one WSOP satellite so far, actually a satellite into another $500 satellite. I didn't win.

Mostly these days I am playing $10-30 single table tournaments. I ran from $200 up to like $880 in less than a week, but then it came crashing down. In there was a session of PLO where I dropped $160, getting stacked 3 times, once as a dog on the turn and twice as a favorite on the flop or turn. I don't really know how to play that game anyways though, so I probably shouldn't have been playing that while I'm still rebuilding.

My first year exam for my PhD program is on June 12th, so I plan to step up the poker after that. Full Tilt is running a huge WSOP 100 seat guarantee tournament on June 17th. What this means is that at least the top 100 will get a seat in the WSOP Main Event. Of course it's going to be huge, so there might not even be any overlay. The buy-in is $500, and this is the tournament I was trying to satellite into. I fully plan to play in this. The problem is that since it's just 5 days after my exam, that only gives me that much time to make a big push for it. Until then, I can only play satellites here and there... or maybe not even any until after the exam.

Full Tilt also has satellites into the smaller WSOP events. I'm going to try and win one of these too, although last year that didn't go so well; ironically I spent more money on that, with no succcess, than I did on winning a Main Event seat.

We are going to Vegas on June 29th. There is a $1500 NL event on June 30th that I would like to play in. Rahul plans to play in it as well, and it sounded like he was going to buy in directly. baller.

I'm toying with the idea of becoming a regular at Tulalip Casino this summer. They've got a 3/5 NL game with $300 max buy-in. So it's quite shallow, but I think I can beat it. I played in it a few weeks ago and pulled down about $400. Granted I was getting sick cards, but as much as I could objectively evaluate the play of the others while on my rush, it seemed to be beatable. We'll see. The main problem is that I'm nowhere near rolled for it with just $1000. But maybe I'll run hot to start out. That would be pretty sweet.

WSOP 2006: MAIN EVENT DAY 2

Before I get started on talking about Day 2 (which unfortunately won't take very long anyways), I should pause and give an update on our Michigan vs Ohio State last longer bet. In the end, we had 3 Wolverines vs. 4 Buckeyes, each of us putting down $100 and the winning team distributing the prize. I was hoping it would be easy to determine who the winning side was, i.e. that it would be fairly obvious who lasted longer and I wouldn't have to deal with splitting hairs down to the hour or anything. But I figured I'd cross that bridge when I got to it, if necessary.

Anyways, as a result of this bet, I got a nice shoutout on ESPN.com (scroll to the very bottom). And in case you can't find it, here's a screenshot:



Woooooo! so yeah, pretty sweet. And to fill in the gaps of knowledge, there were in fact two Buckeyes and two Wolverines heading into Day 2. So this bet was still way up for grabs.

We start play on Day 2 at Level 7, blinds at 250/500 with 50 ante. So with my 12,050 I'm certainly short-stacked but not in any critical range yet (my M is still above 10, for those of you who think about such things). And there were a couple guys at my table with about my same stack, and one guy with about 4000. Of course there were a couple of huge stacks too.

I went into the day knowing I'd need to make some moves early on, but I may have pushed it a little too hard. In one hand, I raised from UTG with KQo. I already talked in a previous post about this problem. There's really no point in raising from early position with this kind of hand, particularly with a stack the size of mine. Anyways, when I did this, the short stack moved all-in. It folded back to me, and it was about 2500 for me to call. I was getting almost 2:1 on my money, so if he's got a pocket pair, then I should definitely call. But if he's got AK/AQ then clearly I'm in big trouble. In retrospect, in guessing his range I think I should've put a lot more weight on those two hands since he's almost certainly pushing with them, and that should lean me towards a fold. However, I really put him on a pocket pair so I made the call. It turns out that I was right this time, he had JJ. So after my dubious pre-flop raise, the call here was mathematically correct to race getting odds. Unfortunately I got no help and he doubled through me. And I still think that I wouldn't be right often enough in this spot; I'm gonna see AK/AQ quite a lot here. Also, I should consider that 2500 represents more than 20% of my stack, which maybe should weigh in more than the straight pot odds here.

So that took me down to about 8k. A few hands later I get KK on the button. It folds to me, and I steal the blinds. sweet.

Next orbit I'm in the button and it again folds to me. This time I try to steal, the SB moves all-in. Of course, this time I have 32 offsuit. argh. Why didn't he do this last time?? Well, bye-bye chips.

Now I'm down to about 5k and again it folds to me. Well it's really go time now, my M is like 5. I'm pushing just about anything now. Next hand I get J9o one off the button, I push. Folds to BB, who thinks forever. It really looked like he was going to fold. So when he finally called, I was really surprised to see a hand as good as he had. He flips over TT. Come on 3-outer!! Well flop comes Q-high, no help. Turn comes T, which looks bad at first but wait, now I have 8 outs!! Unfortunately none came on the river, and I'm out the door in ~3000th place.

Of all these hands, the only one I'd change is raising from UTG with KQo. The hand I busted on was automatic with a stack that low, and the steal attempt with 32o was also standard, unless I have some kind of read on either blind, like I feel that they're itching to play back at me or something.

But what a ride. I dreamed of playing in the World Series of Poker ever since I got serious about the game, back in my first year at Hopkins. I never imagined it would happen so soon. I really do feel like I was well above the average player in this tournament though. Many were way too weak-tight. Some were too aggressive. Some over-played their marginal hands. I don't want to downplay the field too much -- it was certainly full of great players, no matter what Norman Chad or Lon Mcheron may say on tv. But I definitely want to take another shot at it; with a little luck and some more practice and studying, I think I can make something happen there.

WSOP 2006: MAIN EVENT DAY 1 continued

In my last post, I described the first part of my Day 1 in the Main Event. I had run up to about 20,000 chips, and was feeling in pretty good control of my first table. Just before dinner break, I got moved to a new table, where I immediately felt that things were going to be a bit more difficult.

We got a 90 minute dinner break. Anne graciously picked up a sandwich for me beforehand so I wouldn't have to fight the lines, and we went back up to our room there in the Rio so I could chill out for a bit. The others relayed some news to me about who they had seen, gotten pictures with, etc. Brownpa got a picture with Annie Duke, and Emily got a picture with Phil Hellmuth. eww. Well here they are:

Anyways. So at 7:30pm, we start play again. Word on the street was that we'd likely be playing until 2 or 3am. So, I sat down to my 20,000 chips, prepared for another long haul. We started after the dinner break at level 4, which seemed to go by without too much happening either way from my standpoint. I did manage to steal some small pots, but nothing major. Just enough to keep around 20k.

As I mentioned before, this table was a lot different from my first one. Lots of aggression, and lots of bigger stacks. One guy had a HUGE mountain of chips, probably around 70k when I got there and definitely got well over 100k. I managed to get myself in a confrontation with him, too.

This came in Level 5, blinds at 150/300 with 25 ante. In this hand, he opened from UTG+1 for 1000. It folds to me in the SB, I look down at AKh. I have 18k right now and I re-raise to 3000. He thinks for a good minute, and finally calls. Flop comes down 789 with two spades. Not a great flop for me but I make a standard continuation bet of 4500. He instantly moves all-in. AUGH. Of course I have to lay it down. This hand haunts me for the rest of the night though, as I just lost almost half my stack right there and I keep dwelling on how I could've played it differently. Maybe I didn't have to re-raise pre-flop. Maybe I didn't even have to make the continuation bet. I don't know. He had been really active so I knew his pre-flop raise meant very little and that AK is well ahead of his range. So I think I have to re-raise there. Maybe I should've re-raised more to make it clear that I'm playing for my stack with this hand, and to give him no room to outplay me. I don't know. All I do know is that this has re-enforced my belief that AK is really hard to play with deep stacks. It has no implied odds if you do hit, and it's just begging for you to lose a big pot with it if you misplay it.

And who was this guy that I lost all these chips to? That would be this guy. Yeah I didn't know who he was at the time; I just knew he had a mountain of chips. Note that he won the Bellagio Cup just after the WSOP Main Event, and also I have since seen him on tv at some WPT tournament.

Anyways. So that hand sucked. And a few more hands sucked too, and I then found myself down near about 5,000 chips. uh oh. Things were looking quite grim. In another hand, I managed to get myself all-in on a bluff. I made a standard open from late position, the BB called me. Flop came down 346 all hearts. He checked to me and I moved all-in for about 4k. Oh right what did I have? umm JT offsuit. haha. Fortunately he folded, though he did take a while to think about it.

Then, in another hand UTG opens for 900. Folds to me in the SB, I look down at 99. I thought about just shoving right there, but I thought I'd just see a flop with this guy. He had been a bit reckless, so in retropect maybe I should've just played it safe and move in to save the guess-work, especially with how short I was. But I thought maybe I could play a flop with him and get the best of it there, so I just called. BB folded and we saw a flop of 35Q. Not the greatest flop for me but not horrible either. I checked to see what he would do. He bet out 4000. WOW. I had just over 5k so basically I'm playing for my stack here if I go with it. I tanked forever. I stared at him to try and get some kind of read... and my read was, he doesn't like this flop. But, he could still hate this flop with TT or JJ. Then again, that's two very specific hands, and there's a much wider range that he probably has. As I'm thinking, Shannon Shorr calls time (which means a floorman comes over to start a 1 minute countdown for me to act on my hand or else it's dead). But no matter, by this point I had basically made my decision and as soon as he called time, I said "ok I'm all-in." My opponent is forced to call the extra 1k or so with his 78o, no pair no draw. YES. Turn comes a 7 and I'm like NO PLEASE DEALER DON'T DO IT but then river comes a 9 for an unnecessary set and I double up. This was definitely the most difficult decision I had to make in this whole tournament, to play for my whole stack here, and I felt really happy to have made the right move in this spot.

A little later, I get QQ in late position and bust the guy who gave me that difficult hand there. Now I'm back up to about 20k or so.

I dwindle back down a little bit though in Level 6, blinds at 200/400 with 50 ante. I get JJ in mid position and facing a raise in front to 1300. I think about re-raising but decide to just call. Flop comes down A-high and he bets out 2200, almost the size of the pot. Augh that looks weak but I don't know if I wanna play a big pot right here. I think briefly about raising or calling, but decide to just get out of his way and lay it down. I'm not happy about it though.

Then towards the very end of the night, I get 99 again, this time in mid-late position. Here's a hand that I brutally misplayed. Two people limp in front. I limp along. Two more limp behind me and we go 6-way to the flop, which is K42r. It checks to me and I bet about 1500. A guy behind me raises to 5000, it folds back to me and of course I have to fold. So ok there's a number of different ways I could've played this. I could have just shoved pre-flop with those two limpers in front of me and just picked up those chips. Or, I could have just NOT BET when the flop wasn't so good for me and I had a million other people in the hand. yeah. dumb dumb. oh well.

Anyways, I do make it through the whole night, with $12,050 chips to go into Day 2. Not great, but still alive. Here is proof:

After we finished play that night, my crew and I went to a restaurant/bar in the Rio to celebrate my survival through Day 1. I had my first beer in a few days. And even though the night could've ended a little better, I was still on a pretty big high just from being at the World Series of Poker and getting to play in Day 2.

WSOP 2006: MAIN EVENT DAY 1

Ok so here we are, after several posts telling about the first several days in Vegas, playing in various tournaments. It's now finally time for the whole reason of this trip: playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event. My start day was Day 1c, Sunday July 30th. Play began at 12pm, and I was well rested after having sequestered myself in my own room at Fitzgeralds with Emily (again, in separate beds...) while the rest of the party was at our room right there at the Rio. Emily and I stopped in before heading down. Here's a picture with Rahul in the room:

In case you're wondering about the pink shirt, it says "tracysangels.com," and we were wearing them in support of a woman named Tracy DuPont who was suffering from breast cancer. On the back of them, we wrote "TEAM CHI." Not a bad deal, we support a woman who needs help, and we get free uniforms. :)

Of course I also had to wear Full Tilt gear since that is part of the deal with winning a seat on their site. So I had my knit cap, and the pullover that they gave me. I also had a Full Tilt hoodie, but it was a little bit too warm for that.

So on to the tournament. Day 1c had notables Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harmon, Greg Raymer, Tuan Le, Nam Le, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, and Mike Matusow, among others. Fortunately, I never came close to any of them. Odds weren't really in favor of that anyways since there were over 2000 people per day (a grand total of 8773 entrants, spread out over 4 starting days). Oh yeah and 1st prize was a cool $12 million. Top 800 or so would get paid, with the first level of prize money at ~$14,000, and to make it to the first money level would mean lasting until roughly somewhere in the middle of Day 3.

So we started at noon. Unfortunately, since the ballroom was so packed, they did not allow spectators in until somewhere after the 2nd break (4pm). So I was somewhat on my own for the first several hours, although my peeps would periodically peek in through the doorway since my table was actually visible from there. Actually here's a shot of my table from there:



So ok. First several hours. My assessment of the table was that it was a bit weak-tight. Not surprising, for a $10k event with many amateurs like myself. I'm sure that I was not the only one for whom this was the largest event they had ever played in. So nerves were running a bit high, and no one wanted to bust out early. So, this meant I had to open up my game and steal, steal, steal. Which is exactly what I did. For the most part, it was working pretty well. I did get played back at a couple of times, and there were definitely a couple of tough spots at the table, but for the most part I felt in pretty good control of things.


Early on, I had two hands go badly:

1) I find KK in mid position. Blinds are still quite small, I made a standard raise and got called in one spot. Flop was all low, I bet out, got called. Turn was a Q, I bet again, got raised. I didn't really think about folding since I still thought there was a pretty good chance I had the best hand, but turn raises aren't a very comfortable thing to deal with, because they generally indicate great strength, and you also have to have an idea of what you're going to do on the river when they (most likely) bet again. I'm certainly in no mood to go broke with one pair, though it's never easy to muck kings. Anyways, I called, intending to call any modest bet on the river. Luckily, the river brought 4 to a straight on the board, and even though there was basically no way that I had it based on the way the hand went down, it caused the man to check behind after I checked to him, and he took the pot with his set of Queens that he hit on the turn. So I definitely could've lost a bit more on that one.

2) The next one was with AKo (which I KNEW was going to be my worst hand because I am basically still a limit-donk as hard as I try not to be, and AK is incredibly easy to play in limit but might be one of the toughest hands to play in no-limit with deep stacks). It folded to me in late position, I made a standard raise, got one caller (the same guy with QQ) from the SB. Flop came down all hearts with an Ace, I had no hearts. He checked to me, I bet about pot. He thought and called. Turn came a blank, he checked, I put him all-in (he had just slightly over the pot remaining at this point, a few thousand). He deliberated for a while, and then finally called with AQ no heart. BEAUTIFUL. Until, of course, the river came a Q and he doubles through me.

That one hurt the psyche a bit and I actually had to get up from the table and go find Emily and BG who were at the Gaming Expo down the hall. They did a good job of calming me down and telling me I have nothing to worry about, this put me back down to about the 10k starting stack but at least I'm not in any danger, and I had to just relax and play my game.

So I went back to my table. One of the very next hands I picked up was KK, there were two limps and a raise in front of me. YUMMY. I thought about smooth calling, but I certainly did not want to play this hand 4-way. On the other hand, I don't know if my table thought I was crazy enough to re-steal here, so if I re-raise, I'm almost announcing that I have AA/KK. And even if someone did think I was re-stealing, there wasn't really anyone at the table with enough balls to play back at me without having something. So, I'm just hoping someone would call with a smaller pocket pair to try and flop a set but miss. I was laying just slightly worse than the right implied odds for that. If I had more confidence in my post-flop skills I think I could smooth call here, especially being that I was in position. But no messing around right now. I re-raised. Everyone folded to me and I took a couple thousand without even seeing a flop. Dang, I should be doing this with rags too.

Another semi-interesting hand... I was UTG, getting dealt my cards, and before I even looked at them, I started thinking, "You know what hand I hate getting UTG? AJ. I don't know how to play it out of position. Raising sucks, but I just hate folding. But, it's a tough hand to from early position... I think I should start folding it there." And then I look down at my cards, and what do I see? AJ. So I'm about to fold like I just told myself. But wait, it's SUITED! Ok, I raise!! haha. yeah... I get one caller. Flop comes down J-high no obvious draws, I bet out 300 (about half-pot), get raised to 900. AUGH, THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING THIS HAND. But... I'm not quite ready to give it up yet. My opponent was a semi-aggressive young kid, so he could be making a play. I call. Turn comes another blank, I'm thinking... how can I best get to showdown without getting into a lot of trouble? I bet 1500. Probably not the best idea. However, he thinks for a second, and folds. Weird. I think I played that hand absolutely terribly, so I was feeling lucky to come out alive.

Around 4pm they allow spectators in, so my crew enters the arena. We're 2 hours from the dinner break. I get a nice run going, I bust someone with AA against his JJ, steal a few more pots, and run my stack up to about 20k and top 2 in chips at my table. At this rate, I'm thinking I can almost cruise into tomorrow with that stack which would be roughly average, though I do want a bit more.

But then, the table breaks. I get sent to a new table, and my early assessment is that this table is going to be a bit rougher. Way more aggression, and much bigger stacks. There were a couple with over 50k, and most people had like 30k. I was thinking that this table could be a lot of trouble.

I wasn't wrong.

We'll start there in the next post.